


the start of all things

by nishtabel



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Background Ashe/Dedue, Background Felix/Sylvain, Characters to be added as the story progresses, Dimiclaude Week 2020, High School AU, M/M, Modern AU, Rating subject to change, eventual explorations of homophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:26:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22075435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nishtabel/pseuds/nishtabel
Summary: Halfway through Claude’s senior year at Garreg Mach Prep, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd hits his car.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 74
Kudos: 241





	1. all the things yet to come

**Author's Note:**

> happy dimiclaude week! i’ve been working on this story since the end of october, and i’m really excited to share it with you all. thank you, as always, for all of your support—i’m so grateful to be a part of this fandom & the dimiclaude community!

There are five months left in the school year when Claude meets Dimitri. “Meets” is perhaps too strong of a word— _is acknowledged by_ is a bit more accurate. It happens suddenly and awkwardly, with all of the sweat and none of the fairytale romance Claude had imagined. It happens, of course, in the parking lot.

“Claude, right?” Dimitri is saying, like Claude hasn’t been lusting after him for two years. Like Claude hasn’t known _his_ name since they were fourteen.

“Yeah,” Claude says. There’s a dent in his car, in the shape of Dimitri’s bumper. “Claude von Riegan.”

Dimitri nods, hair still sweat-slick against his forehead from practice. He makes a gesture like he’s about to shove his hands in his pockets, except there are none on his stupidly tight soccer leggings. He just looks like an idiot, and he knows it, and Claude wishes _he_ knew it, but instead it’s so goddamn charming he wants to die.

“Sorry,” Dimitri tries. Claude can’t tell if the blush on his face is leftover from practice or if it’s genuine embarrassment. He’s not sure which one he prefers. “It was an accident.”

Claude smiles, and it’s only half as sharp has he wishes it would be. “I should hope so,” he says. “Or do you have a personal vendetta against me, Mr. Blaiddyd?”

Dimitri splutters. “A ven— _no_ ,” he says. “Why would I have a vendetta?”

 _God, and he’s easy_. “You tell me.” Claude grins, with teeth this time.

Dimitri clears his throat, tries again to put his hands in his pockets. “An accident,” he says again, firmer this time. “I have insurance. It’ll pay for everything.”

“Good.” Claude pauses and manages to tear his eyes away from the plaster of Dimitri’s shirt against his chest. Bending down, he runs his fingers along the dent, testing chipped paint and the raw edge of his broken tail light. Unable to resist, he says, “Shit, you really weren’t paying attention, were you?”

“I feel it would be unwise to say,” Dimitri murmurs. Good. At least his politician of his father taught him that much.

Claude straightens back up. “You are admitting fault though, right? Because you hit my car going fifteen while it was parked.”

“Of course,” Dimitri says. “That is true enough.”

“‘True enough’?” Claude shakes his head. “It’d better be ‘true enough’ for your insurance.”

“It will be.”

“Good.”

They lapse into silence. Claude’s brain feels much clearer when he’s not looking at Dimitri’s face—or any part of his body—so he avoids it as best he can. “Guess I’ve gotta take pictures, huh,” he says, and pulls out his phone.

“That would be smart,” replies Dimitri, and if Claude didn’t know any better, he would think Dimitri was teasing him.

* * *

_it’s gonna take about a grand to fix_ , Claude texts Dimitri a week later. _how does it feel to drive around a tank?_

He sends the text before he can talk himself out of it. It’s Hilda’s fault—it’s always Hilda’s fault—that he’d added Dimitri’s number to his phone at all.

(“Dimitri gave it to me in good faith,” he’d said, pouting. “Because he hit my car.”

Hilda had looked him over with all the contempt she could muster. Maybe more. “You think it’s his number tied to the insurance?” she’d asked. “Like it’s _not_ his daddy’s car?”

“Shut up.” A sigh as Claude had flipped the paper over in his hand. “It’s not like it was a _sign_.”

“I think that’s exactly what it was,” she’d said, and grabbed his phone from him before he could stop her.)

Claude is considering turning off his phone and chucking it out the window just as Dimitri texts him back.

 _Insurance will cover it, if that’s what you’re worried about_ , it reads. Claude’s heart sinks, irrationally and against his more rational attempts to convince it that _this is why Dimitri gave you his number, see?_ Dimitri is dull, he’s always been a bit dull, and Claude is just too distracted by his stupid blond hair and stupid blue eyes and his _stupid_ , broad chest to convince himself otherwise. This is proof. Claude will make it be proof.

That is, until, Dimitri sends another text five minutes later. _To answer your question, it feels pretty good. Maybe you should try it sometime._

Claude blinks. _what, you offering?_

He sends it too quickly, but Dimitri replies just as fast. _If it makes up for a terrible first impression_ , he says. God, he’s so earnest.

 _one way to find out_ , Claude types, and hits _send_ before he has the time to stop.

Claude is almost asleep by the time Dimitri texts back, an hour late and none the wiser as to how close he’d come to breaking Claude’s heart. _I have practice tomorrow_ , it says, like Claude doesn’t know. _But if you want, we can study together afterwards._ A break, and then another text. Claude tries not to think of it as a double-text. _I’ll let you drive, of course_.

He’s so sleepy. Too sleepy for nerves to stop his fingers. _of course_ , he replies. _you’d better._ Then, because he has no sense of self-preservation or self-control: _it’s a date_.

* * *

He wakes to his third alarm and four texts from Hilda. Three of them are videos of the same cat, and the fourth reads, _soooo?_ Claude decides to ignore it.

He’s showered, brushed his teeth, and put bread in the toaster before he remembers his _date_.

 _i’ve made a mistake_ , he tells Hilda. _i’ll tell you more when we get to school_.

 _tease_ , she replies as Claude’s licking the butter from his knife. _tell me now_.

 _no_ , he types, and grabs his keys.

He can feel his phone buzzing the whole way to school, alternating texts and requests for facetime. Hilda’s always been nosy and a bit insufferable, and Claude knows she’ll complain when she finally catches him that he’d made her _work_ for it. “The balls on you,” she’ll say, and Claude will swat her away even as she tries to grab at his phone. “Like you could keep anything from me.”

He doesn’t bother to check his phone when he parks, or as he’s walking up to the building. He’s earlier than her, he always is, and he knows she’ll catch him between classes in a riot of pink hair and angry, flushed cheeks.

And catch him she does. He’s stepping out of Calculus to go to lunch when she finally finds him, long hair pulled up into two perfect pigtails and fastened with black satin bows. He nods at them in greeting.

“Those look nice,” he says, knowing flattery is the key to her heart—or at the very least, to keeping her off his trail for a single, beautiful moment. “Are they new?” He steers her towards his locker as he talks.

“What, these?” Hilda reaches up to touch them, brows furrowed. “No, I wore them last week. Remember?”

“Oh,” Claude says, because he does, but he’s just trying to buy himself time. “No, I don’t remember. They look nice, though.”

She huffs as he opens his locker. “That’s what you said _last_ week,” she whines. “You said the same exact—”

Claude’s locker slams shut at the same moment she realizes what he’s done. “Claude von Riegan, you manipulative bastard—”

“Manipulative, huh?” he says, shrugging his bookbag onto one shoulder as he leads her down the hall. “That’s a bit harsh.”

She frowns at him, perfectly pink eyebrows drawing together. “I know what you’re doing,” she warns, keeping pace with him as he turns a corner. “I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work.”

“Oh?”

“You think you can distract me from asking you about your _mistake_ ,” she says, a bit too triumphantly, as Claude opens the cafeteria door for her. She scowls as she walks past him, stomping in the most ladylike fashion over to the line. “Well, it won’t work.”

“What won’t?” Claude asks, still teasing.

“Claude, I swear to god—”

“Okay, okay!” He holds his hands up in mock surrender. “I get it, you’re too smart for me. Be still my beating heart, for a woman has finally bested me!”

She punches his arm. It smarts more than he expects it to.

“Ow,” he says.

She ignores him. “Spill.”

“Let me get my food first—”

“ _Now_ ,” she says, and Claude knows better than to cross that tone.

He tells her, because of course he does. He was always going to. As they sit at the plastic table in their plastic chairs, he pulls his phone from his pocket and pulls up his conversation with Dimitri. It barely takes up the screen it’s so short, but even that had set Claude’s heart beating into overdrive. Now, he feigns indifference as Hilda scrolls through it, rereads it over, and thunks the phone down onto the table.

“‘It’s a date’?” she asks, bordering on shrill. “Holy shit, Claude.” She’s giggling, and he hates it.

“I was tired.”

“Hm.” She spears a potato, lips pursed, as she considers him. “Sure.” She chews slowly. “You’re gonna do it, right?” she asks through a mouthful of food, waving her fork. “Go on the date.”

“Hilda,” Claude hisses, leaning across the table. “It’s not an actual date, jesus.”

She takes another bite. “Sure,” she says again. “But you’re going, right?”

Claude hardly dares to dignify that with a response. “Maybe.”

“Aw, Claude, you’ll break his little heart if you don’t!”

He takes an aggressive bite of pizza. “His heart is not _little_.”

She just throws her head back and laughs.

* * *

Claude gets a text just before school’s out. _Are you still interested in studying with me tonight?_

He’s not supposed to have his phone out in class, but Dimitri clearly does, and there are more important things to worry about than Eisner’s withering glare.

 _i thought you’d never ask_ , Claude replies, and manages to feel really good about himself before remembering that he has to face Dimitri _in person_ , sweaty and flushed and decidedly too fucking hot, in less than two hours.

* * *

It’s four o’clock and Claude is jittering something awful.

 _help_ , he texts Hilda, mostly out of want for something to do. He feels skittish, hot, nerves settling over him like an over-warm, scratchy blanket. He’s sweaty in a very not-hot way. His jeans feel rough against his thighs, starch-stiff and uncomfortable where they bunch and wrinkle at his crotch.

 _you can do it!!!_ Hilda replies, confetti falling from the top of the screen. It doesn’t make Claude feel any less nervous.

 _thanks_ , he types, and promptly forgets to send when he Dimitri approaches him from across the parking lot.

Claude had told himself he wouldn’t watch Dimitri’s practice, because that bordered on creepy and he’d barely been holding it together while texting him. Watching Dimitri race across the field, damp with sweat and looking gloriously debauched in his soccer uniform, would be a test of mettle that Claude couldn’t pass. Not if he wanted to walk away with any dignity, at least.

So Dimitri waves him down from across the parking lot, hand raised in greeting and, surprisingly, not dressed in his uniform. Instead, he wears low-slung sweats and an oversized school hoodie that does absolutely nothing to hide the broad set of his shoulders, nor the taper of his hips to strong thighs that Claude has _not_ spent whole evenings daydreaming about.

 _He showered_ , Claude realizes. There’s a not-so-small part of him that’s disappointed.

Dimitri’s still smiling when Claude meets him halfway, hardly conscious of his feet moving across the pavement.

“Hi,” Claude says, because Dimitri hasn’t said anything and Claude is uncomfortable with silence. “You look good.”

Dimitri smiles wider, cheeks faintly flushed. “Thank you,” he says, and shit, why can he take a compliment? Does he know how fucking good he looks? “I’m glad you decided to join me. I really do feel awful about hitting your car.”

“Oh, do you?” Claude says, completely on autopilot. He’s prickly all over with nerves, fingers twitchy and palms sweaty and a little bit weak in the knees. He’s better than this, he knows he is, but how is he supposed to focus on _words_ and _conversation_ when Dimitri is standing in front of him, half a head taller and smelling like soap? What, is supposed to _not_ imagine Dimitri in the shower, dripping with water and—Claude clears his throat. He’s an adult. He’s a legal adult, and Dimitri is _also_ an adult, and they’re going to do this like adults. “I have to drop it off at the shop tomorrow. They said it might take a couple of days to fix.”

“Oh,” Dimitri says, like he hadn’t considered. They’re already walking towards his truck. “Do you need a ride?”

Claude laughs. “To where, the shop?”

“No, I mean back home.”

“Oh.” Claude makes a show of considering. “No, I just figured I’d walk everywhere like the urchin I am.”

“Claude—”

“Shush,” Claude says. “Your insurance is good. I’ve got a rental.”

Dimitri pulls out his keys and unlocks his truck. It’s an ungainly, massive thing, a brand new Chevy of some kind that Claude is sure Dimitri has no business driving. Never mind the fact that it’s bright blue.

Claude climbs—yes, climbs, because it’s high off the ground and we can’t all be as tall as Dimitri—into the car and notes with mild annoyance that it still has that new car smell. It’s fresh, and clean, and the leather of the seats is soft where he lays back against them. “A tank,” Claude says, and Dimitri nods.

“My dad got it for me,” he says, starting the car. It’s quieter than Claude would have expected, but then again, he’s sure it costs more than he’s worth.

“Really?” Claude makes a show of stretching out his legs, throwing his arms above his head. “I thought you bought it with your own hard-earned money.”

Dimitri is silent, and Claude realizes a bit too late that perhaps that was a bit harsh.

“Ugh, sorry,” he says, and that hot anxiety is back at the nape of his neck, coiling in his stomach. He crosses his arms over his chest in what he recognizes as a defensive move, but he can’t help it. “That was uncalled for.”

“It’s okay,” Dimitri says after a brief pause. “I know it was a joke.”

God, how has he already fucked this up? “Won’t happen again,” Claude promises. He really does mean it, but sometimes his mouth moves before he can stop it. A change of subject would be good, so: “Why the truck, though? I really am curious.” He is.

Dimitri pulls out onto the street before answering. “Dad’s idea,” he says. He rolls to a stop at a stoplight before adding, “He said he’d feel safer with me in a car that would, uh, ‘win’ in an accident.”

“Well, shit,” Claude says. “He was right about that.”

Dimitri blushes, no mistake about it. He’s got a very light dusting of freckles all along his cheekbones, probably from all the sun he’s seen this season. It’s pretty damn cute for sun damage.

“Sorry,” Dimitri says. “You’ll forgive me, right?”

“Mm. Maybe.” Claude decides to leave that open for interpretation.

It occurs to him ten minutes into the drive that he never asked where they were going, and also that Dimitri’s the one driving.

“Hey,” Claude says suddenly. The car is silent, too, which Claude thinks is weird—Dimitri never turned on any music, or even the radio. “Where are we going?”

Dimitri chuckles, and any unease Claude may have felt disappears. “Sorry, I should have mentioned. We’re going to a coffee shop downtown.”

“Downtown?”

“Yeah.” Dimitri takes a left turn slightly too fast to beat oncoming traffic, and Claude can’t help the way his body tenses. It makes a bit more sense why Dimitri’s dad had wanted him in a car that would _win_. “They’ve got great espresso.”

“Oh, espresso,” Claude says. “You take me for an espresso person?”

Dimitri shrugs, having more quickly adapted to Claude’s teasing than Claude would have given him credit for. “To be honest, yeah. But there’s other stuff if you don’t like that. Teas and such.”

“And such,” Claude echoes, because he has nothing else to say. Dimitri thought about this. Dimitri thought about this, and him, and where to take him. In his car. On a (study) date. “Huh.”

Dimitri’s confidence wanes a bit in the face of Claude’s silence. “Is that okay?” he asks, sounding unsure and far cuter than he has any right to be.

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds pretty good, actually.” Claude pauses. “Is that why you didn’t let me drive?”

“Yes.”

“Even though that was the crux of your argument, last night?”

A pause, and then: “Yes.”

“Well my _word_ ,” Claude says, “if I didn’t know any better, Mr. Blaiddyd, I would think you had an ulterior motive.”

Dimitri doesn’t respond at first, but Claude’s still riding high on the _Dimitri thought about what I would like_ cloud to feel embarrassed. It’ll come later, of course it will, but right now—

“Is this a _date_ , sir?”

Dimitri splutters and stops at a green light. He starts again when the car behind them honks, and mutters something Claude is sure is truly blasphemous under his breath before starting forward again. “We’re almost there,” he says, and that’s not an answer at all, is it?

He’s not lying, though; after a long, slightly awkward fifteen minutes of driving along unfamiliar roads, Dimitri pulls into a would-be alley that opens up into a five-spot parking lot. It’s small, and it’s quaint, and Claude is still reeling at how expertly Dimitri managed to drive his monster of a truck through such a small space after pulling them out into oncoming traffic more than once during the drive.

“You come here often,” Claude says as he hops out of the car. It’s not a question, but he supposes Dimitri could take it as one.

“Sometimes, yes.” Dimitri locks the truck behind them, pressing the button on his key fob twice so that it honks. Claude jumps. “It’s a good place to study.”

“Study, huh,” Claude mutters. It’s a bit chilly, a bit brisk, and Claude’s never fully adjusted to the winters of the north. He shoves his hands into his pockets and follows Dimitri inside.

It’s nice, he decides after a moment. It’s small, and quaint, and exactly the kind of place he would expect to have a five-spot parking lot out back. All of the coffee is identified only by which country it comes from; the chalk board behind the counter boasts seven different types of waffles; the wifi password is available upon request only. The majority of patrons are middle-aged, haggard and stubbled and definitely working on novels. Claude would guess they’re all regulars.

He wonders if Dimitri is a regular.

“Have a seat anywhere you want,” Dimitri says, walking up to the counter. “I’m gonna go ahead and order.”

“You think you know what I’d like?” Claude asks as he surveys the shop. There’s not a ton of space, and most of the tables are taken up by solitary guests. There is, however, a couch open towards the back, with a charmingly messy coffee table between it and the wall. There’s an unclaimed outlet nearby, so it’ll do. “Let me put my stuff down and I’ll join you.”

“As you like,” Dimitri says.

Claude orders a nutella-banana waffle and a cappuccino, because he’s a man who knows what he wants and is secure in his masculinity. He orders it in part to make a point—what kind of point, he’s not sure, but he knows it’s a flex. Of some kind. Hopefully.

Dimitri orders black coffee because _of course he does_ , and a single banana nut muffin. The barista asks if he wants it warmed up, and Dimitri says no.

“What?” Claude can’t help himself from saying. “Who doesn’t get their muffin warmed up?”

Dimitri shrugs, much less bothered than Claude would have expected. “Me, I suppose.”

“That’s weird,” Claude tries again. Still unfazed.

“It’s better a bit chilly,” Dimitri explains. He takes the plate from the barista. “It’s—I don’t know. Crisper. Nobody likes a warm banana.” He says all of this like it’s common sense, like no one could ever challenge him. Like he’s stating a fact.

“ _I’d_ like a warm banana,” Claude mutters, and then promptly shuts up.

They sit. They eat. Claude gets nutella all around his mouth and tries to lick it off with as much grace as he can manage. Dimitri pays very little attention to the whole ordeal, instead intent on doing what he _apparently_ came here to do: study.

For as long as they’ve been in school together—as long as Claude has watched Dimitri from afar, kept careful distance while sneaking glances of him in the halls and after practice—Claude realizes that he knows very little about Dimitri. He hardly knows what classes he’s in, let alone what he wants to do with his life. Claude assumes he’s a good student because it’s _Dimitri_ , and they’re here, studying, _together_ , but God, what if he’s not? What if he’s a complete idiot and he makes terrible grades and he’s not even going to college—?

Except Dimitri is pulling up his Almyran homework, a subject Claude didn’t know Dimitri knew existed, and shit, it looks pretty advanced. Claude doesn’t say anything because he’s not supposed to know it, isn’t supposed to speak it, and he feels kinda bad about that except for the fact that it keeps him from getting thrown against lockers or spat on, kind of, so it’s a necessary evil to pretend that he didn’t grow up speaking Almyran. Like it wasn’t his first language, like he doesn’t still speak it exclusively at home. Like he doesn’t think in it, half the time.

“Almyran, huh,” Claude says instead, over top of his Chemistry notes. “I didn’t think many people took that.”

“They don’t,” Dimitri replies blandly.

“But you do?”

“Fourth year, now.” He seems so—nonchalant about it.

Claude’s more curious than cautious, now, which is usually a precursor to trouble but he can hardly help himself. He shifts to look more fully at Dimitri’s laptop screen, scanning the words and trying half-heartedly to pretend that he doesn’t understand them. “Is that a book?” he asks, sounding a bit duller than he’d intended.

Dimitri nods. “An old epic,” he says, and scrolls to the top. “ _The Eagle and the Lion_. There’s a deer, too, technically, but I guess he’s not as important.”

Claude knows the story, if only because it’s been so distilled throughout Almyran literature that it’s the basis for practically every major story, now. He’d first heard it as a bedtime story, clipped and trimmed and child-proofed though it’d been. He’d read it for himself in middle school, parsing through poorly translated text before giving into his frustration and reading it in the original Almyran. His mother, professor that she was, had been so excited that Claude was “taking such an interest in your heritage,” and had insisted on buying him vintage illuminated copies for his thirteenth birthday. As though, somehow, that would make up for her persistent absence in every other facet of his life.

Claude likes Dimitri, but he’s not sure he trusts him yet. Instead, he glances through the first paragraph, noting the highlights and brightly-colored sticky notes Dimitri has pasted into the margins. “Have you read it before?” he asks, because it seems like an innocent enough question.

“No, this is my first time.”

Claude nods. “How are you liking it?” That’s careful enough, he thinks. The right level of half-interested.

Dimitri pauses to think for longer than Claude expects. He scrolls back and forth between a couple of pages, makes a couple of notes, frowns at a particularly dense paragraph. He’s reading without the worst of the annotations, but he still has a dictionary pulled up to the left of the document.

“I like it,” Dimitri finally says. It sounds like an admission. “It’s a difficult read. I mean, the translation is hard, of course, but aside from that, something about it feels...real.” He pauses, staring at the screen. “I didn’t expect that from a piece as old as this one, but something about it is almost alive. Do you ever get that when you read?”

Claude’s breath catches in his throat. He has a choice, here, and he knows it; he can see it as clearly as if it were a doorway in front of him. The safe choice—perhaps the _right_ choice—would be to grunt, or nod, or simply say, “yeah, sometimes.” Because: yeah, sometimes. Except “sometimes” is “every time I read that story,” and that’s a little too close to the truth. A little too vulnerable for today. Claude isn’t sure he has that much to offer up in this little coffee shop, even to Dimitri.

Dimitri, who sits next to him on the plush, worn cushions of the couch, brows furrowed and lips pursed. Dimitri, who somehow knows Almyran, who’s studied it for four years, who’s reading and talking about the very tale that Claude was raised knowing, living, believing.

Dimitri, who may be worth telling the truth.

“Sometimes,” Claude admits, as casually as he can. “I didn’t expect it either, when I read it. But it does kinda give that feeling.”

Dimitri stares at him, looking up for the first time since he’d opened the book. “You’ve read it?” he asks, voice a little thin, a little nervous. Claude can’t imagine why.

“Of course I have.” God help him, but there’s something about Dimitri that makes Claude rash, almost defiant. “You don’t grow up with Almyran parents and not know it.”

Dimitri blinks, gaze catching Claude’s and locking on. “You’re Almyran.” It’s not a question, and the way he says it is—dangerous, almost. Claude feels himself lock up, drawing back in on himself.

“Thought it was obvious,” he says, and can’t help the defensive lilt of his voice. “Or hadn’t you heard?”

Dimitri shrugs, a fluid gesture. His eyes flicker down. “People talk, but I never paid them much mind.”

 _Them, or me?_ Claude’s mind quips, and he has to bite the words back. Instead: “Easy for you to say.”

And, to his shock and mild horror, Dimitri laughs. “You’re right,” he says. “That was insensitive of me. It’s you they talk about, after all.”

Ouch. Claude is liking this less and less. “Sure,” he says, to say something.

Dimitri must sense his discomfort, or at the very least notice him pulling away, shuffling back on the couch. He doesn’t let Claude get far. “That was the wrong thing to say,” he offers, and Claude believes him and all his naivete. He hates that he feels this way, hates that Dimitri can smile and lick his lips and pick his goddamn cuticles and Claude wants to forgive him. To trust him and believe him. Like Dimitri isn’t, really, a representation of so much of the trauma that Claude has endured at Garreg Mach.

Hilda would scream at him for thinking that, though, and the thought makes him laugh a little.

“Yeah,” he says. “It wasn’t great.”

“I’m sorry.” Dimitri looks like he means it. “I simply meant that I try not to listen to gossip. It’s not very noble.”

And oh, Claude has to laugh at that. It comes out as a splutter, an embarrassing guffaw. “Noble, huh?” he teases, and Dimitri’s face goes red.

“You know what I mean,” he mutters, and Claude thinks that maybe Dimitri is just bad at talking. 

“Do I?” He’s still laughing.

Dimitri gives him an incredibly pointed side-eye, and Claude’s giggles again. “Yes,” Dimitri says, voice clipped. If Claude didn’t know better, he’d think Dimitri was putting him on.

But he does know better—at least by now—than to think that Dimitri would ever be anything less than genuine. He lets it slide. He liked their comfortable silence more, anyway.

They sit, and they read. Claude gets halfway through his chemistry homework without running himself through with a butterknife, which he credits in part to Dimitri’s all-too-calming presence. Dimitri breathes deep and slow next to him, intent on his book, scribbling occasional notes in his notebook or jabbing at the keyboard in search of a definition. There’s a traitorous part of Claude that wants to lean over and whisper, “Hey, I can translate that for you,” in his sexiest, sultriest voice; the lizard part of his brain drives him to _show off_ , display his talents and his skill, compete for a mate. It’s disgusting and he hates it, hates feeling jittery and out of control and not fully able to trust himself, but there’s a rush every time Dimitri looks at him, a loud prickle at the nape of his neck.

It’s impossible to focus, so he makes a compromise.

“I know I said this earlier,” he says, “but I’ve read _The Eagle and the Lion_ a couple of times, so if you have questions, I can try to help.”

His offer hangs between them, Dimitri glancing belatedly up from his screen to meet Claude’s eye. He blinks once, twice, as though trying to wipe the words from the inside of his lids, and then he smiles. “Okay.”

 _Okay_. “Okay,” Claude echoes. “Uh—yeah, okay. Just let me know.”

A couple of minutes pass before Dimitri looks up again. “Did you read it in Almyran?” he asks.

Claude doesn’t see any point in lying at this point, so: “Yeah, I did.” Then, “I tried to read the Fodlan translation, but I remember thinking how wrong everything seemed, you know? My mom told me the story when I was little, so I knew kind of how it was supposed to go, and the translation either rewrote whole relationships or cut out whole sections on purpose.”

“Oh.” Dimitri looks surprised to hear that. “I didn’t realize.”

Claude shrugs. “There’s no real reason for you to have,” he says. “Some guy named Dr. Seteth censored it for whatever reason, and you’d never know if you didn’t real Almyran.”

Dimitri considers that. “Even so,” he says, slowly, “it still feels weird.”

Claude laughs. “Yeah.”

He can feel Dimitri watching him even after he returns to his chemistry homework. It’s a warm, nagging feeling, halfway to comfortable and buzzing with adrenaline. It’s been almost two hours and Claude doesn’t know how to end it, if he’s somehow keeping Dimitri hostage, if Dimitri needs to leave and hasn’t said anything, or—

“I’m gonna get another coffee,” Dimitri says, and Claude startles.

“Sure,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

They stay for another hour, until Claude is visibly restless from solving chemical equations and Dimitri’s eyes are red around the edges, almost unblinking. It’s Claude who breaks first, yawning loudly and stretching his arms above his head. His shoulders pop with a loud crack, relief flooding through him and the wrought stiffness of his back. Dimitri makes a face when he rolls his neck, and Claude grins.

“Not a popping guy, huh?” he teases, and Dimitri scoffs.

“It’s gross.” He wrinkles his nose as if the emphasize his point and holy shit he’s _so fucking cute_.

“Yeah, well, it feels great,” he says. “A shame some of us are too _noble_ to get that.”

Dimitri gasps, and it’s only half an act. “Don’t use my words against me!”

It’s Claude’s turn to wrinkle his nose, scrunching up his face against a smile. “I’m Dimitri Blaiddyd,” he sings in a high falsetto, “and I’m too good for simple pleasures! Oh, woe is me, for I know nothing beyond my perfect, royal life!” Dimitri’s laughing, now, and that’s dangerous, because it means Claude’s going to keep going. “Oh, to be one of the common folk!” He throws an arm over his face, leaning back against the cushions. “They know not how I suffer, too much of a pussy am I to pop my own joints!”

“What the fuck,” Dimitri laughs. “Claude—”

“ _Oh_ ,” Claude cries, louder now, “if only they knew what it was like to suffer as a prince! A member of the royal family! The pain it is to be so _noble_ —”

“ _Claude_ ,” Dimitri says through gasping breaths. “Cut it out!”

Claude grins, slow and sweet as molasses. He feels—powerful, in the wake of Dimitri’s laughter. “As you wish, your princeliness.”

Dimitri huffs and turns his attention to where he’s strewn his notes on the table. “Let’s pack up,” he says, but there’s a wicked glint in his eye that’s hard to miss. It makes Claude nervous in a way that curls low in his belly, warm and wild.

“Yes, sir,” Claude teases, but does as he’s told.

They’re halfway back to Dimitri’s car before Claude remembers Dimitri’s promise to let him drive, and thinks it’s only fair to remind him.

“You’re gonna let me drive, right?”

Dimitri shrugs. “I’m not sure you’ve earned it,” he replies. He unlocks the back doors and throws his backpack onto the seat, utterly unconcerned by the way the bag crashes onto the floor with a disturbing metal sound. He turns to grab Claude’s backpack, but Claude slips by him and places it gently on the floor before Dimitri breaks something valuable.

“That was the deal, though,” Claude reminds him. “You hit my car, remember? My _parked_ car.”

“Ugh.” Dimitri sniffs against the cold. “How could I forget?”

They both stand in front of the driver’s side door. Claude holds out his hand and leans against the truck, a display that is ill-advised and entirely spurred by Claude’s desperation to appear _hip_ and _cool_ and like _great boyfriend material, see?_ “Keys,” he orders.

Dimitri scowls and obeys. “Be _careful_ ,” he says, rounding the car and yanking open the passenger door. “It’s harder to handle than you think.”

“Sure, sure.” Claude waves him off and climbs into the truck. He still feels a little emasculated using the built-in step, but Dimitri can hardly tell, and it’s not like everyone can be eighteen and six feet tall. “It’s a tank. We’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, _we’ll_ be fine,” Dimitri mutters.

Claude starts the car.

He discovers two things quickly: one, the truck is fucking massive, and two, he’s never driven anything bigger than his hand-me-down Honda Accord. Everything about this is different. The steering wheel won’t turn without his entire body weight behind it; he’s six feet higher up than everyone else; the turning radius is absolute garbage. To be quite honest, he feels a bit like a child, propped up as he is on the seat in an effort to see over the wheel. It’s a nightmare, honestly, except Dimitri’s watching him from the passenger’s seat in an _I told you so_ way, his eyes a bit narrowed and his mouth curled in an unfair, too-distracting half-smile, and Claude is determined to do well. He will drive this truck, they will make it back in one piece, and Dimitri will acknowledge his superiority and above-average skill by the time the day is over.

Claude can do this.

Dimitri guides them back to the school parking lot through the dying light of day, the setting sun just low enough that it skims the visor of the truck and leaves floating, buzzing blind spots behind Claude’s eyelids. Claude remembers this being a twenty-minute drive, _max_ , and he feels like he’s been driving for an hour. His body hums with nerves made worse by caffeine and sugar, and he tries hard to ignore the cramping of his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

“Just turn left up here,” Dimitri says, and Claude jerks the truck into the left lane. He refuses to look at Dimitri, even—perhaps _especially_ —after he snorts and leans back in his seat. They’re almost there, and then Claude is never getting behind the wheel of his godforsaken truck _again_.

Claude turns left.

He can see the school now, a campus of low-lying brick buildings against the sunset. He never thought he’d be so happy to see it.

“Turn right,” Dimitri says, like Claude doesn’t realize where they are.

“I know,” Claude snaps, and he’s worried for a second he’s been to harsh, but Dimitri just laughs.

Claude pulls carefully around the parking lot, driving barely ten miles an hour and feeling like he’s going so much faster. He sees his car, finally, so tiny and compact and unassuming, and he parks a space away from it. He’d _meant_ to park next to it, but goddamn if Dimitri hadn’t been right when he’d said his truck was hard to handle, and Claude still isn’t used to turning or braking or any of it, honestly, so he parks a space (and a half) away and calls it good.

He turns off the car and breathes.

“We made it,” Dimitri says, and there’s some wonder in his voice. Almost like awe. “Home sweet home.”

Claude scowls and wiggles his fingers, wincing when four of them pop at the same time. He’s stiff as shit. “Like there was ever any doubt,” he says, with the knowledge that there was, in fact, doubt.

But Dimitri smiles at him, so sweet and warm and _kind_ , a sort of smile that just a month ago Claude never thought he would see, and he feels himself melting. Claude turns his face to hide his flush and opens the door.

He’s happier than he thought he would be with his feet on solid ground. Handing the keys back to Dimitri, he says, “Your keys, your Majesty,” because he doesn’t want Dimitri to forget. Claude had made him laugh before, and he’s not about to give that up now.

Dimitri bows, one brow cocked over a crooked smile. Claude shivers.

“Thank you, oh brave knight.” Dimitri’s fingers brush his palm and Claude is jelly. He is warm, melting jelly in the summer heat, and Dimitri is the sun.

A pause, and then: “Thank you. For today.” Claude hardly recognizes his voice, but he’s glad he said something. “I had a lot of fun.” A second pause, slightly too long, before Claude struggles to fill it. “Good waffle.”

“I’m glad you liked it,” Dimitri says. His voice is warm, and he smiles with his teeth. They’re so—white. Jesus. His family must have paid for braces, but God help him, Claude can’t remember Dimitri ever wearing any.

Claude’s walking to his car, because he has to leave now, or he might say something stupid and transparent and entirely too vulnerable. _Great date_ , he thinks, _let’s do it again!_ Instead, he unlocks his car and says, “Good luck with your epic. If you need any help, you have my number.”

Dimitri smiles. “Thank you, Claude.”

“See you around,” he says, and shuts the door.

* * *

A text, sent at 1:01am: _I have practice on Friday. Coffee?_


	2. the things that have passed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claude meets Dimitri’s friends. Hilda meets El. Everyone is just a little uncomfortable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’d like to thank the academy and also diana for helping me get this chapter out so quickly. thank you for your service.

They meet again on Friday, and the following Tuesday. It’s always Dimitri who suggests it, Dimitri who texts first, and Claude feels safer that way. If Dimitri really wants him—his company, at least—he’ll have to ask for it. It feels vindictive and petty, but also _good_ , because Claude has spent too long pining and Dimitri is filling a distinctly id-shaped hole in Claude’s brain.

_How did you make it through this at 13?_ Dimitri asks one night. The epic, of course—it’s all he texts Claude about, outside of _Practice ends at 4:30_ , and _Running late. Meet at Flayn’s?_

They’d met an additional two times before Claude had figured out the name of the coffee shop, because Dimitri always drove them in from the back. The name was charming enough, if not a little weird. If the baristas were anything close to approachable, Claude might have asked about it, but the withering glare they gave him every time he ordered a coffee was enough to discourage him. It’s just Flayn’s—for now.

_patience and willpower_ , Claude replies, rolling over onto his back.

Dimitri’s terrible with patience, which shows in his immediate reply. _It’s so dense_ , it reads. _I feel like I’ve been reading the same stanza for hours._

Claude smirks. _it helps to know the language._

_I do know the language_ , Dimitri replies, and Claude can hear the gripe in his voice. The irritation.

_sure_. Claude leaves off the period, because he knows Dimitri hates it. “It’s just like replying ‘k,’” he’d complained last week. “Didn’t we decide, like, culturally that that was bad?”

Claude had shrugged, and managed to reply to four of Dimitri’s texts with _k_ before Dimitri had stopped texting him that night.

Dimitri sends an eye-roll emoji, which Claude didn’t know he could do.

_you’ve resorted to emojis, huh_ , he writes. _thought that was beneath you_.

_k_ , Dimitri replies, because he thinks he’s cute.

It takes all of Claude’s willpower not to respond.

* * *

Dimitri greets him in the hall on Monday, two weeks into their study arrangement. It’s hard to miss him, standing tall and blond and irritatingly broad over the rest of the students. He waves Claude down with a smile, and by the look Hilda gives him, Claude knows he’ll hear about it later.

“Claude!” Dimitri calls. It travels straight to Claude’s gut, curling and warm and dangerous. There’s color on his cheeks when he turns from his locker.

“Dimitri,” he says, deadpan. He forces his voice to stay low, calm. “What a pleasant surprise.”

Dimitri grins, and it throws Claude off-balance. It’s one thing to text him, to tease him online—but seeing him face to face, here, _at school_ , is another thing entirely. He barely makes it through their study sessions, and that’s only because Chemistry is an agonizingly unsexy topic.

But now Dimitri is just—standing there. Watching. Waiting for something.

Claude blinks and shuts his locker. “Yes?” he asks, sounding so very put-upon. “I didn’t think you have practice today.”

“I don’t,” Dimitri rushes to say. Claude is very aware of Hilda’s gleeful, voyeuristic presence at his side. “I just had a question.”

Claude nods as Hilda says, “I’m sure he’d be happy to answer it for you!”

They’ll talk about that later.

Claude clears his throat. “What’s up?”

“It’s about the _Eagle and Lion_ ,” he says, and Claude can’t help the way his heart sinks a little bit. Of course it is. “I have an essay on the first book due next Friday, and I had some translation questions.”

Hilda’s staring at the two of them, eyes darting back and forth in between the liberal five feet of space Dimitri insists on maintaining. It’s—awkward, he knows it is, but he can’t figure out _why_ , because it seems like Dimitri feels awkward, too.

“Yeah, I’ll help,” Claude says. Hilda nods beside him, a bright bob of pink hair curled sweetly at the ends. “You wanna meet at Flayn’s after school?”

“Oh,” Dimitri says. There’s a faint coloring on his cheeks that Claude can’t figure out. “Yeah, if you want.” A long pause, and Hilda’s close to bursting; Claude can feel the energy radiating from her like static electricity. “We could also, uh. I mean.” A laugh, nervous and true, and Dimitri scratches the nape of his neck. His shirt rides up and Claude swallows. “Let me start over.”

“Right,” Claude says, keeping his eyes on Dimitri’s face.

“Come over to my house.” It comes out in a rush, and Claude doesn’t believe it even when his brain catches up to him.

“What?”

Now that he’s gotten it out, Dimitri seems a bit more confident. “I mean, yeah,” he says. “I was gonna have some people over to study anyway, and I feel like I work better with you around. You know, to help. Read.”

There’s an odd fluttering in Claude’s chest, dangerously close to disappointment, but there’s a hunger there. _I work better with you around_. “Okay,” Claude says. His voice sounds far away.

Dimitri smiles, and it’s blinding. “Great!” he says. “Bring Hilda, too.”

Hilda squirms beside him, hands clasped in front of her as she bounces on her feet. “I’ll be there to cheer you guys on!”

Dimitri gives her an odd look, smile turning a bit crooked when he turns back to Claude. “I look forward to it,” he says, and walks away.

Claude watches him leave with a groan. “God,” he says, letting his eyes roam down Dimitri’s body. “I hate to see him go, but I love to watch him leave.”

Hilda snorts. “Don’t quote Lil Wayne at me.”

“Show me someone with a better ass, and I’ll consider it.”

* * *

Dimitri has a terrible habit of texting in class, Claude has discovered. Unfortunately for Claude, Dimitri’s bad habits are rapidly becoming his, as well.

_Forgot to give you the address_ , Dimitri texts halfway through sixth period.

Claude’s ready for him. _shit, i was getting used to that chauffeur service. you’re gonna make me drive?_

Dimitri sends him an emoji with its tongue out, except it’s the crazy one that’s also winking. Heat curls in his gut because he’s a child, and Claude types _don’t be a baby_ before Dimitri sends another text and he immediately deletes it.

_1185 Azure Moon Drive. I’ll see you at 3._ Followed by, _And Hilda._ Then: _Please bring Hilda_. Jesus. Does he not think out a single text before he sends it?

Claude wants to be offended that his own presence isn’t enough, but he’s more curious than angry, and as much as he wants to be _alone_ with Dimitri, he’s already been assured that won’t be the case either way. Having Hilda there will at least give him someone to talk to when Dimitri’s attention inevitably gets stripped from him.

That’s something to look forward to.

_don’t worry,_ he replies. _you couldn’t get rid of her if you tried_.

* * *

They take Claude’s car, but he makes Hilda drive. He’d picked her up this morning because she’d been begging for Starbucks, and his promise to grab some for the both of them had done nothing to mollify her.

_i wont see u til 3rd period_ , she’d complained. _what good is coffee to me then?_

_get there earlier, then_ , Claude had replied, but somehow he’d still ended up at her house fifteen minutes later.

Dimitri’s house isn’t far, but it still takes them almost twenty minutes to get there. They twist and wind and take several wrong turns because Dimitri lives in the Old Money Suburbs, also known as the esteemed neighborhood of Fhirdiad Heights. It’s a ridiculous name for a ridiculous group of people, and quite honestly he doubts the majority of its inhabitants could even spell _Fhirdiad_ if they tried.

But that’s neither here nor there.

“Shit, where does this guy _live_ ,” Hilda whines from behind the wheel. She’s pulled the seat as far up as it can go, leaning forward against the wheel to see over it. “Listen, we both knew he had money, but I didn’t know he had _money_.”

“His dad’s a senator,” Claude replies mildly. “Which means whatever he makes in office, he makes double outside. They’re stacked.”

Hilda whistles and turns onto a gravel driveway. It’s the nice kind of gravel, though—it’s red and smooth and almost wet, the kind that won’t leave dust all over the front of your fancy BMW. Or Honda, in this case.

The driveway is at least a mile long, and even though Hilda takes it at an unsettling forty, it takes them more than a minute to reach the house.

_House_ is the wrong word, though. It’s a fucking mansion.

“Wow,” Hilda says, sounding only half as amazed as she should be. Then again, she lives in a veritable mansion herself. (“We’re _new money_ ,” she’d told Claude at thirteen. “My grandparents were dirt poor.” Like it was a fun fact or an accessory. A personality trait.) “This is pretty cool.”

Claude ducks out of the car and onto crunching gravel. “And to think,” he says, mock-serious, “that he never once offered to pay for my coffee.”

Hilda slams her door shut and walks over to him. “Would you have let him?” she asks, because she only humors him when it’ll needle. He doesn’t answer.

They’d parked over to the side, near the edge of the large driveway. It can hardly be called a driveway, to be honest; it looks more like a cul de sac, ending in a broad, round arc of gravel just below a set of brick stairs. There are two other cars parked on the right side, both a bit haphazard and neither of them Dimitri’s. There’s a smaller dirt path that leads around the side of the house, two thinner, parallel tracks that Claude assumes lead to the family garage. There’s no telling who’s here, then—although Claude can assume that at least two other people (in addition to Dimitri, he prays to God) have beaten him here.

Hilda’s already walking up the steps to the main door. “Come on,” she says, hair swaying behind her. “I don’t know about you, but he asked for me specifically, and I don’t want to keep him waiting.” She turns halfway just to give him a wink.

“Ugh,” Claude groans, and it’s only half-joking. “Fine. Ring the doorbell.”

“No need.” Her hand is on the doorknob. “It’s unlocked, see?”

And then, of course, she opens it.

“Hello?” she calls. “It’s Hilda!”

Claude feels weird just following her inside, unsure if he should take his shoes off or his coat or leave his keys by the door, but he doesn’t see anyone else’s, so—he steps in after her, taking care to wipe his shoes on the welcome mat. He doesn’t know if he’s ever been in this nice a house, and he feels oddly out of place. Not that his house _isn’t_ nice, his mind is quick to correct, but this is different. This is a whole other world.

He’s drifted a bit to examine an old, bronze vase before he hears footsteps on the stairs. “Down here!” someone calls, and it’s too muffled for Claude to be sure if it’s Dimitri or not. More muffled laughter floats up behind it, and Claude is starting to feel on edge.

Luckily, Hilda doesn’t have any reservations. “Coming!” she calls, and turns to go down the stairs. Claude follows her, squishing down the voice in the back of his head that tells him _You should take your shoes off before you talk on the carpet_. His boots are muddy and overworn, and the gravel from the driveway didn’t help. He supposes, however, that whatever damage he does will be quickly corrected, as the house seems otherwise spotless.

He follows Hilda down the stairs.

What greets them is an entertainment center fit to burst, with wires tumbling off the sides and curling up to plug into the giant, curved TV. It takes up half the wall, and of course the cabinet drawers and shelves are glass, so Claude can tell they have—at least—every game system dating back to the N64. It’s not meant to show off, either; it’s a mess, dusty and unkempt, with old, half-full mugs of coffee and soda and a couple of beer cans sitting on the top of it. It’s well-loved and often used, and there’s a deep spike of jealousy within Claude that he doesn’t expect or care to acknowledge.

He tears his eyes from the TV to take in the rest of the basement. It’s big, and that’s the best word Claude can find. Everything in it is big. The couches are big. The wet bar is big. The foosball and air hockey tables are big. There’s at least three soccer balls lying about on the floor, each in a different neon color. There’s a door in the very back with a sign that reads _Stop and smell the rosé_ , and Claude hopes that’s not a wine closet. (Of course it’s a wine closet.)

Dimitri has the good sense to look abashed when Claude finally looks his way, saying, “Wow,” because what else is he supposed to say? Dimitri ducks his head, just slightly, just enough to almost hide the coloring of his cheeks, and—they have company, so Claude turns and looks at them.

He recognizes them only vaguely, but enough to know an approximation of their names. The big red-headed one has a name that starts with an S, he knows, but he remembers it being something odd, like— _Sanathan_ , his brain supplies, which is definitely just _Jonathan_ with an S, so that’s not it. At the very least, Claude knows he’s the son of “the Margrave,” who has a lot of money and who donates most of it to various anti-LGBT agencies. Claude knows this only through his mother, who has been trying very hard to connect with Claude since he came out to her. Her efforts have had varying levels of success; the information about the Margrave had been met with a shrug and a, “oh, great, another one,” to which Claude’s mother had replied, “I just thought it was interesting,” and to which Claude had said, “sure.”

S-son-of-Margrave sits next to a dour-looking guy who reminds Claude of a stray black cat. He’s pouting in what Claude assumes to be an exaggerated attempt to appear _menacing_ , except his eyebrows are drawn and his shoulders are hunched and Claude suspects very much that he is, in fact, just trying to keep from touching _S_ , which means they’re definitely a Thing. Claude’s been here all of three minutes and he can sense it, which means S _definitely_ doesn’t know, or else he wouldn’t be staring at Hilda’s cleavage where it threatens to spill from her uniform.

There’s one other guy in the room, situated off to the side in a reclining chair that may or may not be a bonafide La-Z-Boy. The chair is absolutely absurd, a beast of a thing, overly plush and nearly as broad as it is tall, except that’s also how Claude might describe the man sitting _in_ the chair. Claude recognizes him from—somewhere, an odd and hazy memory that he can’t quite place, but he definitely hasn’t seen him recently, so he can’t be in school with them. He’s tall, ridiculously so, broad shoulders beneath a jaw so square and sharp, Claude would be afraid to touch it. His hair is shock-white, skin dark, and even in the dim lighting of the basement, Claude can see a thin, pale scar bisecting his pursed lips. Quite frankly, he’s huge, and Claude knows very little besides the fact that he could do some damage, so Claude files that away for later and moves back to Dimitri.

“I brought Hilda,” Claude says. He gestures at her, like Dimitri wouldn’t have noticed. Like she hasn’t already spoken, or let herself in, or trounced down the plush, carpeted stairs with her shoes on.

Dimitri smiles, open and genuine. “Great,” he says. “El’s upstairs in her room with a couple of her friends, and she wanted to meet you.”

A pause, uncharacteristic for Hilda. “Me?”

“Yeah.” Dimitri shrugs. “I told her I was gonna ask Claude over and she told me to invite you, too.”

“And here I thought _you_ wanted to see me,” Hilda huffs. She blows her bangs from her eyes and cocks a hip. “But I suppose I’ll take my leave. Upstairs?” 

Dimitri nods. “Second floor,” he clarifies, and at least he knows his house is huge. “Third door on the right. It’s pink.”

“Pink,” Hilda muses, almost to herself. She glances at Claude, but he nods.

“Go have fun,” he says, even as his heart beats in his throat. It feels a bit like being thrown to the lions, but he’ll survive. He always does. Maybe if things get really bad, he’ll just join Hilda upstairs. He grimaces, forcing it into a smile. Hilda’s the only one who notices.

Hilda nods, brows furrowed but more or less unbothered. She turns back to Dimitri and says, “Boys,” with a nod to his friends, and bounds back up the stairs.

“She was cute,” says S, and there’s a moment of silence before Hilda calls, “Thanks!” and he colors slightly. The dark-haired boy to his right glowers at him.

Dimitri clears his throat. “Claude,” he says, and Claude feels his gaze snap to Dimitri’s, unbidden and entirely on instinct. He wills himself not to blush, knowing there are at least three other sets of eyes on him.

He suddenly remembers that he’s standing—that he’s the _only_ one standing—and feels remarkably out of place. Luckily for him, Dimitri seems to realize this at the same time, and motions him over. Dimitri’s mouth catches up with his hand a few seconds later.

“Sit down,” he says, redundantly.

Claude pads over to him, still in his shoes, still feeling weird about it. He feels eyes on him, feels the skin at the nape of his neck crawl beneath the collar of his sweater. He’s suddenly very conscious of the GAP tag where it digs in at the top of his spine.

Overwhelmed by options, he picks the seat at the far end of Dimitri’s couch, setting his backpack delicately on the floor. When he sits, he sinks further into the cushions than he expects and lets out a soft, surprised, “Oof!” S snorts and his friend glares, and Claude gets the feeling that this is their dynamic. Claude ignores them and the fact that sunk into the couch like he is, his feet don’t touch the ground.

“Thanks for inviting me,” he says, almost meaning it. He’s grateful, he is, but Dimitri is— _Dimitri_ , and he’s fine alone but now he has friends, tall and big and intimidating and this is their territory, now. Claude’s just stuck in it.

“Ignore Felix,” S says, unbidden. Claude feels his head jerk in S’s direction, slowing it at the last second and forcing a lazy blink.

“I’m sorry?” Claude says, and he sounds like his mother.

“He’s a bitch,” S continues, elbowing the guy at his right—presumably Felix—in the ribs. “Whatever he does, just ignore it.”

“What a vote of confidence,” Claude says, just before Felix gives a, “Fuck you, Sylvain.”

_Sylvain_. That makes so much more sense than _Sanathan_.

Dimitri laughs, half a couch away and still too close. Claude feels his skin prickle, almost-pleasant and warm. “So much for introductions,” Dimitri says. Claude notices for the first time that Dimitri actually has a notebook in his lap, laptop poised precariously on the coffee table in the midst of several half-full coffee mugs and at least three cans of Red Bull. Claude bets that they buy Starbucks K-cups. Or Peet’s.

Claude shrugs. “Nice to meet you,” he says, and then, “I’m Claude,” because it feels appropriate, and he can feel his mother’s voice nagging in the back of his head. He only barely manages to restrain himself from offering his hand to shake. (“You can judge a man’s character by his handshake,” his mother had said, when he was no older than five. “Don’t trust a limp fish.”)

“We know,” says a voice from the doorway, and oh my God, there are more? But the person who comes into view is remarkably small, almost lithe, with white-gray hair and a heavy dusting of freckles. “I’m Ashe,” he says with a smile, and his teeth are crooked in a way that makes Claude feel much more at ease.

As soon as he thinksit, he feels bad. “Nice to meet you,” Claude says, and smiles back.

Ashe, in his gray hoodie and worn jeans, walks over to the chair that may or may not be worth two thousand dollars and drapes himself across the occupant’s lap. With a sigh almost entirely for show, he brings a hand to his forehead, kicks his feet up on the arm of the chair, and says, “Dedue, how much would I need to pay you to kill me? Right now?”

Dedue hums, moving only to move the book in his hands to rest on Ashe’s stomach where he’s stretched across his legs. “Fifty dollars,” Dedue says, and then, “Maybe thirty, if I’m feeling generous.”

Ashe groans. “Do you know how many times I’ve rewritten this paper for Mr. Hanneman?” His head hangs off the side of the chair, neck bent at an uncomfortable angle. “Like, four.”

Dedue hums again, a noncommittal noise. “You know it’s extra credit, right?” he asks, voice gentler than Claude expects. “You can turn it in at any point, in any form. It’s only going to help your grade.” He says all of this with his eyes trained on the book.

“Leave it to Ashe to make the rest of us look bad,” Sylvain grumbles, just loud enough for the room to hear. He winks at Claude.

Ashe props himself up on his elbows, glaring at the back of Sylvain’s head. “It’s not _my_ fault some of us rely on scholarships to go to this stupid school,” he says.

Sylvain turns around to look at him, arm thrown over the back of the couch. “And it’s not my fault that I don’t have to.” It’s light-hearted, said like a joke, but there’s an edge to it that Claude doesn’t miss. Sounds like wealth is a point of contention for Sylvain.

Ashe shrugs as best he can from where he’s sprawled in his friend’s—it’s his friend, right? it’s gotta be—lap. “Never said it was,” he says, and it’s placating. Claude gets the sense that this is an argument they’ve had many times, in many different forms. He makes a note to steer clear of it.

There’s a moment of silence wherein Sylvain and Ashe stare at each other, Felix looks pointedly at the textbook in his lap, and Dimitri’s eyes travel carefully between the three of them. The man in the chair stays perfectly still, only moving to turn the page of his book.

Finally, Dimitri turns to Claude. “Alright,” he says. “You’ve met Ashe, Felix, and Sylvain. Dedue is sitting in the chair—he’s Ashe’s boyfriend.” He says it like it’s an inside joke, with a hint of laughter in his voice, but Claude knows he’s serious. “He graduated two years ago and currently works for my father, so he’s around a lot.” 

Claude nods along as Dimitri gestures, hands more expressive than he remembers. It’s—an odd feeling, to see Dimitri so animated. To see him fully at ease.

“Felix,” Dimitri continues, pointedly and with a sharp glance at where Felix sits, “is a childhood friend. We’ve known each other since we were four.”

“Three and a half, technically,” Felix says without looking up.

“Four,” Dimitri continues. “Sylvain came later.”

Sylvain gasps, holding a hand to his chest in mock hurt. “That’s it? That’s my introduction? What, are you afraid he’ll choose me over—”

“ _Sylvain_ came in around eight.” Dimitri glares, but there’s little heat behind it. Sylvain grins, slow and easy, and throws an arm over Felix’s shoulders as he relaxes back into the couch. Felix shrugs him off with a grunt. “He moved back home to Fodlan after traveling abroad with his father in Sreng.”

“At eight,” Ashe pipes in.

“Again, not like I had a choice in the matter,” Sylvain says.

Dimitri continues. “I met Dedue and Ashe in high school. Dedue through hockey, Ashe through the academic team.”

Claude raises a brow. “Academic team?”

“Sophomore year,” he says, and waves him off. “Anyway. The point is that we all come from different backgrounds, so don’t be shy. I promise we’re all quite nice.” Dimitri says the last part with a scathing glance at Felix, who doesn’t bother to look up from his homework.

“Thanks,” Claude says, because he’s not sure what else to say. In the moment of silence that follows—encouraged, at the very least, by the stillness of the room, the lack of eyes on him—Claude leans down to unzip his backpack and pull his laptop from its depths. His backpack is stuffed to the brim with old books, some for school and some not, edges curling and a bit yellowed at the spine. He’s suddenly self-conscious of the messiness of it, the “overdue” slips that spill from between the pages of two of the books. Of the fact that he’s the only one without a MacBook.

Alone with Dimitri, it didn’t bother him; Dimitri was easy, almost, kind and gentle in his nervousness and the way he stumbled over his words. But here, now, surrounded by Dimitri’s childhood friends and in an unfamiliar, otherworldly home, Claude feels his skin crawl.

He hopes it doesn’t show.

For the most part, after that, it’s easy. To Claude’s admitted surprise, it does look like everyone that Dimitri has stuffed into his basement is intent on working on their homework. He sneaks occasional glances at Felix and Sylvain, with Sylvain’s arm now back over Felix’s shoulders; at Ashe curled now against Dedue’s chest with a book in hand, title in a language that may or may not be Old Adrestian; at Dimitri, most often of all, with his brow furrowed and his short, blond hair tucked haphazardly behind an ear. Claude has noticed that Dimitri has a habit of chewing at his lip when he’s focused—it leaves bright red welts and charmingly chapped skin, a trait that Claude knows he shouldn’t love but does anyway.

He wonders, briefly, what Dimitri has noticed about him, before he shoves the thought away and forces his attention back to his Calculus homework.

It’s Sylvain who breaks their silence first, which Claude thinks he might have expected. What he doesn’t expect, however, is that Sylvain’s question is directed at him. “You’re in Calculus?” Sylvain asks, genuine curiosity in his tone. “I took that last year.”

Claude finds that hard to believe, but he’s not here to press his luck. Not in that direction, anyway. “Yeah,” he says, and shifts his notebook where it’s perched in his lap. It’s a precarious balance, holding his laptop at his knees and his notebook curled against his thighs. “I’d heard good things about the teacher, and I needed another mathematics credit.”

Sylvain cocks a brow. “How many do you have?”

And Claude’s not here to brag, but—“Technically six,” he says. “I took Algebra 1 in eighth grade, and this is my second Calculus course.”

Felix snorts to the side, and Claude hopes it meant to deride Sylvain more than Claude.

A small frown curls at the edges of Sylvain’s mouth. “Second?”

Claude shrugs. “I took Calculus AB last year. I’m working on BC now.” He’s getting the sense that Sylvain is competing with him, and he’s nervous, now, because he doesn’t know the rules. “I’m interested in epidemiology,” he says, by way of explanation. “Like, the history and spread of diseases.”

“Hm,” is all Sylvain says, until Ashe gives a warning, “ _Sylvain_ ,” and Sylvain says, “That’s interesting.” Claude knows he doesn’t mean it, but he is a bit warmed to know that Ashe is, at least for the moment, on his side.

Another twenty minutes passes in relative silence, and Claude can tell he’s beginning to reach his limit for Calculus. When he calculates a derivative incorrectly—when he reads _sin_ as _sec_ and wastes nearly ten minutes recalculating with increasing irritability—he knows it’s time for a break. He sighs, stretches, closes his laptop and sets it softly on the only corner of the coffee table that isn’t covered in half-eaten snacks, and glances over at Dimitri. He’s been studying with Dimitri for long enough now to recognize the signs of Dimitri approaching his limit, as well: the same creased brows, the unblinking stare, the picking of teeth at his lower lip and then, when that draws blood, the chewing of his cuticles. When Dimitri runs his hand through his hair for the fifth time in a minute—when he sighs that heavy sigh for the third time in just as long—Claude leans over and says, “How’s it going?”

Dimitri jumps before he laughs. He straightens his back with a groan, squeezes his eyes shut, stretches his arms above his head. “It’s going,” he says. “I’m stuck again, I’m afraid.” There’s frustration in his voice, a clipped edge. He glances at Claude. “I hate to ask for help.”

Claude smiles, happy at least to be needed. (Perhaps, also, for an excuse to shift close to Dimitri, nestled as he is on the other end of the couch.) He feels an odd pressure to whisper, so he does. “Which part?” he asks, voice low. If he thought higher of himself, he might think he saw Dimitri shiver.

Dimitri points at his screen, littered with bright post-its and comments stuffed into the margins; an Almyran dictionary takes up a third of the screen. It takes Claude a moment to parse through the language of it, piecing together bits of context and odd phrases before he settles on the sentence as Dimitri’s finger.

“Ah,” he says. Of course Dimitri’s having trouble—scholars have struggled for generations with this passage. He says as much, before adding, “I can give you my interpretation, if you’d like.”

Dimitri blinks, and then blinks again, eyes still noticeably dry. “What about it is so controversial?” he asks, frowning. “I mean, I can take a guess, but I can barely understand the words, let alone figure out what it means.”

Claude smiles. “It’s a meeting between the Lion and the Deer. The focus of the epic is never on the Deer, so there’s a lot of speculation about his character and his motivations,” he explains, and points to the beginning of the stanza. “You may have noticed, though, that he interacts pretty often with the Lion.” This, he says with a smile. It’s one of his favorite parts. “Translated directly, which I assume is how you’re doing it, it reads something like…” He pauses, translating in his head and holding it. “The Lion approaches the Deer for help. He says, ‘We should unite our forces,’ or something like that, and the Deer replies, ‘How can I trust you will not eat me?’”

“I assume he’s not a cannibal,” Dimitri says, and Claude nods.

“No. Although you’d be surprised, with some of the shit people have published about this. But—no. Obviously, it’s a nod to their names. The animals that represent them.” He clears his throat and continues, even as he feels his brow furrow. He tries to ignore the eyes on him, the knowledge that he’s outed himself as someone who can read Almyran. It wouldn’t follow so close behind that he can speak it, too. But he promised to help Dimitri, and he’s finding more and more that Dimitri’s eyes on him, that clear, lucid blue, is more than enough motivation to continue. He says, “It’s important to remember that this is an informal meeting before the battle at Gronder. If I remember correctly, it says earlier that the Lion is a day’s ride away. He asks the Deer—technically the Stag, but I think ‘Deer’ is more popular—to meet him at the Lion’s camp.”

“He cut it kind of close, I think,” says Dimitri, and Claude can’t help but smile.

“The Eagle has spies everywhere,” Claude reminds him. “It’s not a terrible plan, when you think about it. Even if their alliance is found out, she wouldn’t have any time to prepare.”

Dimitri thinks about this. “Sure. If the Deer—uh, sorry, the Stag—agrees.”

“He does.” A pause. “Kind of.” This is the part that’s up for contention. The part that differs from translation to translation, sometimes cut out altogether, and the part that is the most marked difference from the original Almyran to the Fodlan translation. Claude realizes he doesn’t know who Dimitri’s Almyran teacher is, but he thinks it’s interesting that they assigned their class the original version. It’s hard not to imagine an agenda, there, and Claude finds himself endeared.

He continues. “This is the part you’re struggling with, right?” He points to the beginning of the second stanza, already half-highlighted and with several question marks in the margins. When Dimitri nods, Claude clears his throat, and begins to explain. “The bargain struck between the Lion and the Stag”—he smiles, a bit indulgently—“has been a source of debate for years. Actually, centuries would be more accurate, even in Almyra. Before anyone in Fodlan even dreamed of translating this for mass consumption.” He pauses to skim the stanza, suddenly nervous he’s _wrong_ , somehow, even though this is his story, his epic, his culture. He swallows, wipes his sweating palms on his jeans, and goes on. “I’m not sure how much you’ll talk about it in class, but in my opinion, it’s one of the most interesting parts.”

He’s stalling. He can feel himself stalling. Talking to Dimitri is one thing, but talking to this room is another. It’s ridiculous to feel eyes on him, he knows it is, but their gaze crawls over his skin, worming its way beneath his scalp and itching down his spine. He doesn’t like the way they look at him, like he’s someone who knows too much to be _one of them_ , and all at once he’s feeling very much like he should stop talking.

He and Dimitri haven’t spoken much about the whole _I’m Almyran, by the way!_ thing since the first day. It’s understood between the two of them, a half-awkward, don’t-ask-don’t-tell situation. Claude isn’t so embittered to think Dimitri is doing it on purpose; he has a good enough sense of him now to trust that he’s simply afraid to ask, but that—well, that also hurts. And now here they are—here Claude is—speaking about the part of him that’s made him so _other_ for the majority of his life in front of four people he doesn’t know or, quite honestly, trust.

Except he trusts Dimitri. More than he should, and almost implicitly. It’s in the way Dimitri squares his shoulders when he’s focused, in the way his brows draw together and the way his nose wrinkles at the bridge; in the way he always forgets his soccer uniform doesn’t have pockets; in the way he still offered to let Claude drive his truck, even after Claude’s car had been fixed. Claude chases that sense of trust, of wholehearted belonging, with each of Dimitri’s white-toothed smiles and stupid, grammatically perfect texts. More and more, he finds himself leaning into it, into Dimitri, thrilling each time Dimitri’s eyes find him, bright and blue and genuine.

Dimitri is dangerous in a way Claude can’t pinpoint, like the threat of a shadow in midday. It slips out of his grasp each time he closes in on it, and the more he searches for it, the more he tries to track it down, pin it on a map, put some reason to it, the more he finds himself spinning in circles, right back to where he started. Right back at: _I trust you, and I don’t know why_.

Claude tries again. He looks at Dimitri’s notes, looks at the stanzas, and says, “Why don’t you try to translate for me? And I’ll help when you get stuck.” That, at least, feels safer.

Dimitri looks at him with curiosity, but doesn’t argue. “Okay,” he says, and then he laughs. “Please don’t judge me too harshly.”

Claude offers a self-indulgent smile, only for Dimitri. He pointedly ignores the way Felix stares at him from the corner of his eye, rude and unmistakable; at least Sylvain is being subtle about it, head bowed into his book.

Dimitri clears his throat in that nervous way he has, scrolls up and down with an idle murmur, and finally leans in to translate. A moment passes as Dimitri whispers aloud to himself, half in Almyran and half in his native tongue. Finally, when the room is silent—perhaps aside from Ashe’s gentle breathing in the corner, where he’s fallen asleep—Dimitri says, “From what I understand,” because he’s clearly not confident in his translation, “the Lion suggests an alliance, and the Stag accepts on a couple of conditions. He makes the Lion promise not to eat him, and then… he says something about taking the Lion’s army for his own.”

Claude hums. “Kind of,” he says. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“I can tell.” Dimitri’s still staring at his screen. “It doesn’t make sense like this. I mean, I guess it does, because it’s a thousand-year-old epic and they don’t really have to make _sense_ to be important, but you’d think they’d have some care for staying in character.”

“You’d think,” Claude echoes. “Which is probably why it’s so heavily debated. A lot of people take it literally, like you did—not to say that you’re _wrong_ , just that you took the easy way. You’re a kid, it’s your second language, it’s not a bad thing.”

Dimitri doesn’t look placated, but Claude continues. “Besides, isn’t it easier to say that the Stag of the Almyrans betrayed the Lion of Fodlan? There’s some poetry, there.”

“It’s a story.”

“Yeah, based on history.”

“Do we know that?”

“If you grew up in Almyra, you would.”

“You grew up in Almyra?” someone asks, and it’s not Dimitri. Claude’s head snaps up to find Dedue, who still sits quietly in the armchair in the corner of the room. Ashe leans at an uncomfortable angle in his lap, head nearly dangling off the arm, mouth open and beginning to drool. Dedue looks unperturbed, unfazed, and Claude imagines that’s how he always looks.

Dimitri’s eyes snap between Dedue and Claude, at least aware of the position Claude is in. He does what any well-meaning, non-Almyran person would do, and looks at Claude before saying, “You don’t have to answer that.”

“That’s just like saying ‘yes,’ though, isn’t it?” He doesn’t mean to sound so bitter, so caustic, but his words still come out snappish and cold. “Why do people keep asking me that? I thought it was obvious by now.”

Dedue is frowning. “I didn’t mean to offend,” he starts, and Claude grits his teeth. _Yeah, well, you did_ , he wants to say, but God, he’s tried that before, and it’s only made things worse. He has few enough allies in this space already, and as it stands, a solid fifty-percent of them are upstairs.

“I know,” Claude says instead. “I just—get that question a lot. Kind of. They don’t normally phrase it that way.”

“I understand,” Dedue says with a nod, and for the first time, Claude notices there’s a hint of an accent to his words, a subtle lilt to his vowels. He won’t ask, can’t ask now, but he tucks that observation away for later. Perhaps when they’re in a better, more neutral space. “I’m very rarely up to date on information.” He says it so— _formally_ , so kindly, so steadily. Like it’s the truth, like there’s nothing more to it. Like that’s the only bit of information he’s offering, not because he’s hiding something, but because he has nothing to hide.

Claude suspects there’s more to Dedue than this, but for the time being, he allows himself that comfort: that lack of insinuation. For once, he foregoes the _implication_. He takes a deep breath, forces the tension in the hard set of his shoulders to relax, and says, “Yeah, I grew up in Almyra,” because it’s not a secret, is it? He’s positive that Felix and Sylvain knew the moment he stepped into the basement. Before then, even. What is he doing, infiltrating Dimitri’s circle like this, thinking he can hide behind his pale skin and blond hair and tall, broad shoulders? Like it’ll rub off on him?

“My mom’s Almyran, my dad’s a piece of shit, and I’ve lived in Fodlan with my mom since I was eight. I grew up speaking Almyran. I read in Almyran. I talk to my grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles in Almyran.” He pauses for breath, and to steady himself in the wide, worried haze of Dimitri’s eyes. He glances at Felix and Sylvain, surprised to find they both look just as taken aback, but he goes on just the same. “I don’t care what you’ve heard about me. It’s all wrong, to be honest, but you should know that already.” A pause. “Except for the one about me biting Holst Goneril in the sixth grade. That one’s true. He was big and mean and much older than I was and when he called me a mutt, I drew blood. I apologized after he started crying.” Then: “I don’t know if you noticed, but his younger sister is my best friend, so I think we’re fine now.”

He’s rambling and he needs to stop, but he just needs to say it. And goddamn Dimitri for making him _want_ to say it, to need it. To own it. To use his heritage as a weapon. Or—maybe a shield. Like armor.

That’s all very poetic, though, which is clearly not what Sylvain has in mind when he says, “As long as you’re not from Duscur, I don’t really care,” because it’s supposed to be a joke. Claude can’t imagine it’ll land, except—

“Fuck you,” Ashe calls, followed shortly by, “Yeah, I’m sure that made him feel a lot better,” from Felix, and finally, “I’m the one from Duscur, if you’re wondering.” Dedue says the last part, almost like it’s easy. Dedue says everything like it’s easy, and Claude thinks that maybe to him, it is. 

Maybe. Or, maybe just like Claude, it’s all practice.

“I didn’t know you were from Duscur,” Claude says, more than a bit grateful to shift the subject from himself.

Dedue smiles, indulgent. “I thought it was obvious,” he says, and Claude guesses it kind of is, that maybe he _should_ have known, but there’s a million places he could have been from with skin that deep and shoulders that broad, and maybe his hair was dyed, and Claude tries to keep himself out of the habit of assuming. Plenty of people have assumed things about him, and although the fact of him being Almyran had gotten around eventually, there had been several less than savory and entirely fantastical rumors about him being from Duscur and Sreng and, at one point, Brigid.

Being Almyran was bad, but for the few days he’d been from Duscur, his life was much worse.

He swallows the _I’m sorry_ where it threatens to spill from his mouth, and says instead, “It’s nice to meet you.” It sounds so inane when he says it out loud, but he does mean it, and from the smile the blooms across Dedue’s face, Dedue knows that. It’s more of a relief than he expects, an easing of the weight at his shoulders, a lightening of the air around them. He feels, suddenly, irrationally, much less alone.

Dimitri, for all his naivety, can still read a room. It’s almost six, now, the sun drifting low and red, and he says, “I guess we’re done with homework now, huh?” 

“‘Done,’ isn’t the right word,” says Ashe, a little bit grumpy and a little bit childish, but mostly very charming. “But yeah, I think if I have to read another line of St. Varley whine about the virtues of _staying indoors_ and _being with oneself_ I might offer Dedue that thirty dollars.” Ashe winks, except it’s less of a wink and more of a half-blink, the other side of his face scrunching as he does it. 

Dimitri shuts his laptop with a final thud. “Right,” he says, like he’s in charge. Maybe he is. “Who thinks they can beat me in Smash?”

* * *

As it turns out, Claude is terrible at Smash, Ashe is surprisingly good, and Dimitri is a sore loser. By the third round Ashe had crawled onto the far end of the couch Claude shared with Dimitri, pushing Claude even closer to Dimitri than he already was—and then, sure, their knees had touched, and maybe their thighs had touched, too, and maybe Claude had thought to count the freckles that dusted Dimitri’s nose, and maybe Dimitri had caught him staring, and _maybe_ Dimitri had stared back, a little bit flushed and a little bit sweet—but at the end of the day, they both still lost. Ashe jumped and hollered and jostled them both when he knocked the five of them off the platform, a shockingly good move that Claude admittedly cared very little about in the face of Dimitri’s—well. In the face of Dimitri’s face.

Dimitri’s beautiful, genuine, stupidly happy face, with all his perfect white teeth and bitten, chapped lips, pale blond lashes so long that Claude found himself wanting to get lost in them. But that was a weird thought, maybe, so he should probably just stick with—

Dimitri’s face. Close to his.

And all the possibilities.

* * *

They leave at ten, and only once Hilda has dragged Claude by the ear from where he’s nestled into the couch. It’s rude and embarrassing but he can’t be that mad at her, because she looks a little worse for wear, herself.

When they get to the car—after a hasty wave at Dimitri and a high-five from Ashe—Hilda says, “I hope you enjoyed your date.”

Claude says, “It was okay,” and Hilda frowns.

“I met El,” she says, as Claude starts the car. “She’s—intense.”

“Intense how?” He has to adjust all of his mirrors, now, since Hilda drove them here. “Like, bad intense?”

She pauses to think while Claude pulls them out onto the driveway. It’s darker, now, no light filtering through the trees that line the gravel path, and Claude has to turn his brights on to see where he’s going. He takes it at a careful twenty, nowhere near Hilda’s death race earlier, and they’re almost to the end of the driveway when she finally speaks.

“She said she’s been wanting to meet me,” she says, slowly. There’s an odd edge to her voice, thoughtful, bordering on cautious. “Like she’s seen me around, and stuff.”

“Huh.” He assumes they’re headed to her place, since it’s Friday night and he knows she’ll beg him to stay, anyway. He’s turning onto the highway as he says, “Did she say why?”

“Well, that’s the weird part.” 

Claude sees her out of the corner of his eye, one long, pink ponytail curling around her index finger as she stares at her lap. Thinking—about what, Claude’s anxious to find out. He doesn’t know much about Dimitri’s step-sister, especially since she goes to a different school, but he’s heard rumors. Rumors that he finds hard to believe, sure, but rumors nonetheless. 

“She said she recognized my name, and that she thinks we’ve met before, but she doesn’t know where. And that she’d like to get to know me, ‘if that’s alright with you.’” She puts the last part in air quotes. “Like, what? What am I supposed to do with that?”

Claude considers it. “I mean, I’ve heard she was a bit odd, but I think Dimitri would have mentioned if she were, like—dangerous.”

“Yeah. Probably. But what if he didn’t want you to know?”

He snorts. “What does he care if I know something bad about his sister?”

“Step-sister,” Hilda reminds him, “and are you serious? He’s actively trying to impress you. Why would he be, like, ‘Hey Claude, this is my sister El, she might be crazy’?”

“He is not—no. I’m not having this conversation right now.” Claude feels his hands flex on the wheel, gripping at the worn, gray leather. “We’re talking about you and El and whatever happened tonight. Spill.”

Even with his eyes straight ahead, Claude can see Hilda’s pout.

“ _Fine_ ,” she huffs. “She’s a little weird, yeah, but you’re right, I don’t think she’s dangerous. Or crazy, even. I just think she’s lonely, and I think maybe going to one of those all-girls Sothis schools has done a number on her.” She leans back in her seat and puts her feet on the dashboard, a habit Claude stopped trying to talk her out of years ago. “I think Dimitri talks about you at home—sorry, I _know_ he talks about you at home, because she _told me so_ —and I think she wants a new friend. I just think she doesn’t know how to make friends.”

“So he mentioned you, too?” Claude asks. It’s a reasonable enough jump in logic.

Hilda shrugs. “Guess so,” she says. “We’re kinda inseparable, right?” She giggles, but it’s true. They have been for years.

“Fair enough.” It’s still weird, of course it’s weird, but again, he trusts Dimitri. If he cares about Claude at all—and signs point to _yes_ , he cares a _little_ —he probably wouldn’t put Hilda in a dangerous situation.

Uncomfortable, sure. But most of tonight was uncomfortable for Claude, too.

He takes the exit to Hilda’s house with slightly less grace than usual, cutting across two lanes of traffic to merge at the last second. Hilda yells and grabs what she so affectionately calls the “oh shit” handle, because of course she has a name for it, like Claude ever gives her enough reason to use it.

Calm and collected and now turning into Hilda’s neighborhood, Claude asks, “What did you all do, then?”

Another shrug, but it’s not defensive. “We just kinda… talked, I guess.”

“Talked, huh.”

“Yes, talked!” She sighs, slumping down in her seat. Like she can hide from him, any more than he can hide from her. “We talked and she showed me her makeup and also her, uh, throwing knife collection.”

Claude says nothing, carefully tamping down the smile that threatens to erupt on his face. He raises a single brow.

“It was a nice collection!” Hilda cries, defensive. “Ugh. I know. It’s like—who does that? But she seemed really proud of it. And she showed me her practice room in the basement.”

There are a lot of things Claude can say to that, but what he settles on is, “She has a practice room in the basement?”

“Well—”

“A _whole ass room_?”

“Claude—”

“How the fuck did we get here?” He laughs as he pulls into the driveway, cuts the engine, and looks over at her. “Like, what did we do? How are we friends now with people who have whole rooms for their hobbies?”

“My mom has a craft room,” Hilda tries, but gives it up rather quickly. “ _I know_ ,” she says instead. “I know, right? Who are these people?”

Claude leans back in his seat, staring up at Hilda’s house. He’d always thought of it as a mansion, with its six bedrooms and its finished basement and its stupid, pillared three-car garage. But Dimitri’s house—Dimitri’s house is something else altogether.

He sighs. “Guess we did good,” he says, and then glances back at her. “Right? Is this what people aspire to? Wealthy friends?”

Hilda gives him a pitying look. “Yeah, because you like Dimitri all because of his money.” She steps out of the car, halfway to the front door before Claude can catch her.

“What more can a guy ask for, other than great auto insurance?”

She laughs and unlocks the door. “Whatever you gotta tell yourself,” she says, and then they’re inside. And then, because it’s Friday night, they binge the worst horror movies in Mr. Goneril’s collection, fall asleep at four, and don’t stir til noon.

* * *

Or, maybe that’s a bit of a lie.

Maybe this version is more truthful: Claude and Hilda fall asleep at four, and while Hilda sleeps peacefully in the dim, glowing light of the TV, Claude dreams of eagles and lions and a stag caught between them. He dreams of Gronder, of the wounded and the dying, of the waves and waves of death that fall upon their armies. He dreams of a monster, half-man, half-beast, that prowls the fields and forests and the rivers between them: a monster that trudges with its maw bloody and its teeth bared, and a single, bright blue eye that seeks light in the growing darkness.

He dreams, of course, of Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, of his wrath and his anguish, and of the heavy, thudding steps that bring him to rest at Claude von Riegan’s grave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh oh.
> 
> as always: comments, questions, emotional ramblings—any and all are welcome, encouraged & appreciated. thank you for the incredible response to the first chapter, and for your continued faith in me. it means so, so much! if you’d like, you can find me on twitter @ nishtabel :)


	3. like the holding of hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri has some apologies to make. Claude may or may not accept them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, the chapter count did go up. yes, it may go up again. yes, my chapter outline is falling apart.
> 
> yes, you should listen to “wasteland, baby” as you read this. enjoy!

Claude doesn’t think about the dream.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to think about it, or that it weighs on him, or even that it’s unsettled him so deeply that he has no _choice_ but to push it from his mind—but rather that he wakes, shaking, sweaty and uncomfortable with his cheek pressed against the rough carpet of Hilda’s bedroom, blinks twice, and forgets.

A sense of unease dogs him throughout the day, quiet nips at his heels and an occasional shiver down his spine, like a vague sense of deja vu. But when he thinks about it, it makes sense: he’d spent the majority of his evening talking about the epic with Dimitri, feeling uncomfortable and out of place, before following _that_ experience up with a horror movie marathon and an accidental nap-turned-sleep on Hilda’s floor. Of course he’d had a nightmare.

He mentions it to Hilda over brunch—now just a late lunch, at two p.m.—and they have a nice laugh about it, with her calling him a nerd and a hopeless romantic, and doesn’t he remember how he used to tell her all about how _sweet_ and _tragic_ it would be to have a whirlwind romance, just like Romeo and Juliet?

“I was twelve,” he says, defensively and over a huge bite of pancake. “I didn’t know any better.”

Hilda sighs wistfully, giving an exaggerated, longing glance at the ceiling. “God, you know, I’ve always wanted to love someone so much I’d die for them,” she says, and of course she’s teasing, because Hilda’s never cared a day in her life about romance outside of a book.

“Okay, well, I’m eighteen now—”

“Such an adult!”

“— _I’m eighteen now_ , and it’s gross, okay? I thought we all had a cultural moment where we agreed Romeo and Juliet was gross.”

“We did.” Hilda looks at him over her mug of coffee. “But that doesn’t mean I believe you. How does it go? ‘Thou doth protest too much’?”

“‘ _The lady_ doth protest too much,’” Claude corrects, because it’s all he has on her. “And I don’t think it’s romantic!” He stabs at his pancake with more fervor than is, perhaps, strictly necessary. “It’s—gross. It is. I mean it!”

She’s laughing. “It is.”

“Glad we agree,” Claude says, through a mouthful of food. Syrup drips from the corner of his mouth and onto the plate, and as Hilda laughs and throws her napkin at him, all is forgotten.

* * *

The next dream is harder to forget.

This time, it’s different: it’s more somber, and at first it’s little more than flashes of blue and gold and molting antlers, an aching laughter that chases Claude through the trees of the forest. There’s snow on the ground that almost crunches when he steps on it, almost hisses and shifts and slips as he walks, one foot in front of the other as he begins to run—

And someone catches him up against a tree, a swirl of blue and gasping breath, a whisper at his ear, a promise to always catch him if he flees—

It feels like a threat, words that bite hard and sharp against the thrumming of his pulse, that swirl and wind and finally settle at the base of his skull, the knowledge that he’s never alone, not truly—that someone, something, is dogging his steps—

He doesn’t wake, doesn’t stir, but it feels like he does, just for a moment. Daylight is bright and wild, pouring through the trees, and Claude feels himself blink, sees himself blink, almost like seeing double but _feeling_ it, too. He’s huddled in a mass of blue velvet and black fur where he lies in the center of a copse of ancient, branching oaks, and a feeling of contentment seeps into him, warm and safe and entirely disarming. There’s no snow, no sign of winter, and the sun brightens everything it touches, soft and hazy and gently drifting. It feels real in a way that Claude can’t place, can’t wrap his mind around, and there’s a shuffle to his right, the trees parting just enough for Dimitri to walk through, tall and scarred and _safe_ , goddess, he’s safe and he’s come back to him—

* * *

Dimitri texts him on Tuesday, halfway through third period and just before lunch. _Let’s get lunch_ , he says, like Claude hadn’t been scared half to death by his friends just last weekend. Like they’ve talked since then.

 _why?_ Claude replies, and it sounds harsh because he means it to be harsh, but maybe it’s a little too harsh, so he adds an eye emoji because they’re on that level, right?

 _I think I need to make up for my friends_ , is the reply, and Claude’s really pushing it with his phone out in between his legs, right beneath the desk, but he pushes it a bit more when he says, _it’s fine_ , and then, because Dimitri’s rubbing off on him, _but maybe individual exposure would be good_.

 _So…_ A thirty-second pause. Claude’s sure his heartbeat is audible from space. _Lunch?_

 _maybe_ , Claude says, and what he means is, _how could I say no to you?_

Unfortunately, it turns out to be quite easy to say no to Dimitri, because Mr. Eisner does it for him. He solidifies next to Claude’s desk, shaggy hair and shaggy beard and looking very much like the History teacher he is, with his hand outstretched. “Phone,” he says, and because Claude doesn’t know what’s good for him, he says, “What phone?” and Mr. Eisner says, “Hm.”

Claude gives him his phone.

“Pick it up at the end of the day,” Mr. Eisner says. “We’ll talk then.”

* * *

“‘We’ll talk then’?” Hilda echoes, having rushed Claude in the hallway after class. “What does that even mean? All you did was send a text.”

It shouldn’t grate on him the way it does, Claude knows, but it still _does_ , haunting him with an uncanny sense of disappointment. He feels deflated. He’s used to his peers not liking him, but the idea that a teacher would feel the same is—horrible. It’s objectively horrible. Terrible, even.

“Three texts, technically,” Claude says. He sighs. “I sent three texts.”

Hilda waves him off. “I’ve sent more than that and he’s never gotten mad at me! Not once.”

“That’s ’cause you’re a lost cause.” It’s true. Hilda does fine in school; she skates by in class and turns everything in on time, and she’s charmingly slippery in a way that makes her hard to discipline. Most teachers have stopped trying, although Claude suspects this has much more to do with the fact that every time Hilda’s gotten detention, she’s spent much more time playing therapist to teachers than she has feeling sad and sorry about herself.

Hilda is untouchable in a way that Claude is desperately, hopelessly jealous of, but also in a way that he’s felt for so long, it hardly matters. It’s a fact of life, an essential part of Hilda, and after knowing and loving her for the better part of four years, he knows there’s nothing he can do to change it.

That’s all a bit dire, though, and really, Claude’s come to terms with it. He’s spent plenty of time being jealous of his friends, and to be honest, it hasn’t made him any better or happier, which of course is something his mother warned him about at thirteen but to which he hadn’t listened. All that to say—

“Nah, it’s just ’cause I’m so cute,” Hilda says, and it’s so easy just to smile and laugh and agree. It was hard at first, seeing the bubble that Hilda lived in, but he’s not fourteen or fifteen or even sixteen anymore, and it’s gotten easier.

“You’re right,” Claude agrees, and they bump shoulders. “I keep hoping some of it’ll rub off on me, but alas, you’re still the only one between us who can grow a mustache.”

“Hey!” she cries, because it’s _true_ , and, “I told you that when I was—emotionally compromised! You can’t do that!”

He winks at her. “Only after I told you I was a sad, lonely gay kid whose pride and joy was the single hair I’d grown on my chin in eighth grade.”

Hilda guffaws, aggressive and loud and a little bit snorting, and she covers her mouth in horror. “Fuck you, Claude,” she says, and there’s so much love in her voice.

“Love you, too,” he says, and walk side by side, giggling loudly, straight to lunch.

Dimitri finds them as they’re sitting at their table, half a pizza between them and two cups of corn that Hilda ceremoniously pours over her slice. She’s been doing it since Claude met her, and honestly, it’s only just now starting to get less gross.

“Can I join you?” Dimitri asks, all proper and sweet and just slightly too loud.

Hilda turns first to see him standing three feet away, just on the side of too far to look at ease, but still close enough to send a shiver down Claude’s spine.

“Of course,” she says, because _of course_. “You’re always welcome to sit with us!”

Claude shoots her a look and she laughs.

“Thank you,” Dimitri says, and sits next to Claude on the bench. Their thighs don’t touch, but Claude can still feel the heat that radiates from Dimitri’s stupidly large body. From the taper of his hips, the muscled swell of his though, the hard jut of his broad shoulders softened only by his worn hoodie.

Claude coughs. Chokes, actually, on a bite of pizza.

“Are you okay?” Dimitri says, worried, brows drawn in such genuine concern that Claude feels his face heat.

“Yeah,” he says, except it comes out as, “Ye— _ck_ ,” as he coughs again.

“Is he choking?” Dimitri asks Hilda, because clearly Claude cannot speak.

“Mm,” Hilda says, humming as she takes a bite of her own food. “He’ll be fine.”

Claude waves between them as though to signal, _Yeah, I’ll be fine_.

Dimitri looks unconvinced, but nods all the same. “Alright.”

Claude heaves and coughs for several long moments, chugging water in the most attractive way he can manage, before he finishes that and is still, much to his surprise and horror, coughing.

“Here, have mine,” Dimitri says, cracking open his water bottle as he offers it to Claude. “I promise it’s fresh. I’ve not, uh, I’ve not—had a drink, yet.”

Claude hardly hears him, instead grabbing the bottle and drinking until he can’t feel the tickle in his throat. “Holy shit,” he finally says, face flushed and throat raw. He coughs once, an experiment, and finds he can breathe again. He glances between Hilda and Dimitri, his eyes wet with tears that are definitely _also_ on his cheeks. “Thanks for the help, guys.”

Hilda looks indignant. “You said you were fine!”

“I didn’t _say_ anything,” Claude says, but wipes the tears from his eyes with a half-hearted grin. “God. Okay. Now that that’s done, I’m gonna eat.”

They eat in silence for a moment, Dimitri with his home-brought pasta and Claude and Hilda with the pizza split between them. It’s comfortable, almost; the background noise of the cafeteria is soothing in a way Claude would never have called _soothing_ , but he feels as though he’s in the same bubble he always is with Hilda, except now Dimitri’s here, too.

“So tell me about yourself, Dimitri,” Hilda says, because as much as Claude may enjoy the quiet camaraderie, she’s never been the best with silence. “All I know is that you hit Claude’s car and that you have a lot of money.”

“Hilda!” Claude cries, almost choking on his food again.

“I’m just saying.” She’s got on that typical, innocent pout of hers, and as horrified as Claude is, he knows Dimitri can’t be upset with her. No one can.

He’s right. Dimitri laughs after a brief pause, and says, “You’re not wrong.” He places his fork down with extreme care, a gentle flourish, and god, who treats their silverware like that?

Unless it’s actual silver. Silver silverware.

Claude tries not to stare.

“I can give you my life story, if you’d like,” Dimitri continues, hands folded in his lap, the picture of a perfect gentleman.

“I would like,” Hilda says, right as Claude says, “You don’t have to!”

“I don’t mind.” Dimitri smiles, right at Claude. Claude blinks and stares at the crust on his plate. “It’s not that interesting, anyway.”

Hilda hums. “I doubt that,” she says with a wink. Dimitri flushes, just slightly, just enough to make his freckles stand out, and as much as Claude’s going to strangle Hilda _later_ , he can’t complain right now.

“My dad’s a politician, which I guess you probably know,” Dimitri says. “My mom passed when I was two. Complications with ovarian cancer.” He says it like it’s nothing, like it’s not a big deal, but _fuck_ , Claude feels his heart break, just a little, just a crack, right down the center. “I don’t remember it very well. She and my dad were high school sweethearts, but he doesn’t keep photos of her around the house.” Dimitri pauses, just briefly, but long enough to glance down at his hands. “He remarried less than a year later. His rival’s campaign advisor.”

“What?” Hilda says, leaning over the table. “Seriously? I didn’t know _that_.”

Dimitri laughs. “It’s kind of a secret,” he says. “I mean, not really, because I’m telling you guys, and it’s not like people don’t _know_ , but—anyway. The wedding was private. Courthouse. They keep their jobs very separate from their home lives.”

Claude nods. He gets it, in theory. He thinks maybe his life would have been a little more stable if his mother had done the same, but also feels a bit bad for thinking that, so he shrugs it off. “I get it,” he says instead, because he does.

“I’m glad.” Dimitri smiles, shy and bright, at Claude. Claude notices the way his eyes crinkle at the corners, just a little, and the dimple that deepens only on the right side of Dimitri’s mouth. “From my standpoint, Patricia has always been my mom. Not in any—real way, I guess, but she’s the mother figure in my life. She’s the one who signed the permission slips and gave us our allowance and all of that.”

“Us?” Hilda prompts.

“Me and El,” Dimitri explains. “Edelgard is my step-sister, Patricia’s daughter. She came to the family with her mom when our parents married. We get along alright.” There’s a long pause, Dimitri twirling his fork in his pasta with an absentminded stare. “We were closer when we were younger, but she’s still my sister, you know?” He looks at the two of them as though asking for permission, some kind of forgiveness that Claude doesn’t know how to give. “She goes to a different school, now, because that’s what her mom wanted. I don’t think she likes it much, but it’s not like she has much time to tell me about it, even if she wanted to.”

“Why?” Claude blurts. He shouldn’t pry, he knows he shouldn’t, but he’s so _curious_ , now, and that always makes him reckless.

Dimitri shrugs. “She’s sick,” he says, purposely vague. “On and off. It’s not a big deal with the right treatment, but she still has to get blood transfusions a couple times a year.”

“What?” Hilda asks, noticeably perplexed. Claude cuts her off with a sharp look, and she subsides. “Sorry,” she says. “Go on.”

“I don’t wanna say much about it, since it’s her thing. But anyway.” Dimitri lets go of the fork, shrugs, and looks over at Claude. “Basically, our nanny raised us. I know I said Patricia was my mom, and that’s true, I guess, because she is, legally, and when I picture _mother_ , I see her. But it was Sandra who raised us. She’s the one who, like, you know, made us breakfast and lunch and who sat us down for dinner. She’s the one who held us in her lap at Christmas, took us to school in the morning, helped us with homework, all of that. She was just—really great.” Claude doesn’t miss how Dimitri looks down at his lap, how he blinks several times, just slightly too quickly. Claude doesn’t want to pry, he _doesn’t_ , but Hilda—

“Was?”

Dimitri sniffs, not crying but not far from it. “Yeah,” he says, and offers no other explanation.

Silence returns, except now it’s awkward. Claude coughs.

“Well, that was enlightening,” he says, and to his relief, Dimitri laughs.

“Sorry,” Dimitri says. “I didn’t mean to make it… dark.” Another laugh. “I had all these grand plans of sounding cool and well-read and, like, chill. Not tell you all how sad I was about Sandra dying.”

 _Sandra dying_.

Claude doesn’t ask. Instead, he says, “It’s okay. You heard a bit of my tragic backstory on Saturday. Don’t feel too bad about it.” Then, because it feels right: “I’m sorry for your loss, though.”

“Thank you.” Dimitri clears his throat. “It happened a couple years ago, so I’m pretty much over it. I mean—not _over_ it, but it doesn’t hurt as much anymore. You know?”

“Yeah.” Claude nods. “That really sucks.”

“I’m so sorry, Dimitri,” Hilda says.

“It’s fine, it’s fine.” He waves them off with a forced smile. It grows more genuine, a little sheepish, when he says, “Thanks for listening, though. It’s kinda old news for my friends.”

“If you ever need to talk…” Claude tries, trailing off. He’s known Dimitri for barely a month, but—it feels normal, natural, to extend the favor. He’s surprised he means it, really and truly, already invested in Dimitri’s wellbeing.

He’ll examine that later. For now, after Dimitri says, “Thanks, I really appreciate it,” Claude nods, and they return to their meal. It passes quickly, almost jovially, the three of them moving easily together. Dimitri laughs at all the right moments, at each self-deprecating joke Hilda makes, and even when Claude misspeaks and speaks again, Dimitri offers him a kind smile and a nudge against his shoulder. Hilda glances knowingly between the two of them, eyes sharp and bright, a single brow raised. Dimitri doesn’t see it because he’s not looking at her, he’s looking at _Claude_ , and oh my God, Claude does not want to have this conversation later.

(“Seems like he’s kinda into you, huh,” she’ll say, all knowing and sweet and teasing. “I mean, far be it from me to assume, but it doesn’t look very one-sided to _me_ …”)

There’s no bell to tell them that lunch is over, because Garreg Mach is morally opposed to bells, but there is the steady drain of students around them and the gradual dimming of conversation in the room. 

Finally, when it’s just the three of them left with two other half-empty tables, Claude says, “I should get to class,” because he knows Hilda’s next period is a study block.

Dimitri’s already putting the lid back on his Tupperware—the kind that says _Tupperware®_ on the top—by the time Claude stands up. “Let me walk you,” he says, as Hilda looks pointedly down at her own tray. “You have Chemistry, right? It’s not that far from my next class.”

Claude pauses, glancing briefly at Hilda. He’s not sure if he’s asking for permission or for help when he does it, but either way, she gives him nothing. “Aww!” she says instead. “Thanks for sparing me the trouble, Dimitri. It’s so hard keeping him out of trouble all the time.” She wrinkles her nose in Claude’s direction, and suddenly he hates her. Or loves her. It’s kind of a mix of both, honestly.

“’Tis my pleasure, milady,” Dimitri says, offering a deep, exaggerated bow. He turns to Claude as he straightens. “Shall we?”

He has no other choice, now. “Of course, your Highness,” he says, with all the courage he can muster. He’s just thankful his hands aren’t shaking when he picks up his backpack from the cafeteria floor.

As Dimitri leads Claude from the room, Hilda calls from behind them. “I’ll see you tonight, Claude!”

They’re in the hallway when Dimitri asks, “What are you all doing tonight?”

Claude laughs. “Honestly, I have no idea. She’ll think of something.”

Dimitri nods, solemn and severe. Claude thinks he’s probably still in character, but he’s not exactly sure where Prince Dimitri ends and High School Dimitri begins. Claude’s starting to think there’s not much of a difference.

The walk isn’t long, and they pass it in comfortable silence. After Saturday night, Claude had forgotten how _nice_ it was to be with Dimitri—how soothing it was, to have Dimitri at his side. Claude is often uncomfortable with silence, with the way that it so often insinuates a _lack_ on Claude’s part, but with Dimitri, now, it’s different. It’s more like how he is with Hilda: sweet and wild and playful, except it’s sweeter than it is wild, and Claude does the majority of the playing. Dimitri is simply—there. Present. Open and available. Content with Claude’s presence in a way that if Claude thinks too hard about it, he might really get in his feelings, and they’re still in school, only halfway through the day, so he doesn’t have time to do that.

They turn the corner into the Science hall. Dimitri glances over at him, and while Claude doesn’t miss it, he doesn’t acknowledge it, either. There’s something unspoken between them, not quite an elephant but not small enough to ignore, either. Claude’s afraid he doesn’t know what it is.

Dimitri keeps looking at him. The halls are mostly empty, and the clock on the wall reads _11:53_. He has two minutes to get to class.

Neither of them move, because Dimitri’s opened and closed his mouth three times. Finally, after the clock says _11:54_ , Dimitri blurts, “I’m sorry about the other night.”

Claude blinks. “Thanks,” he says, because he doesn’t want to say, “It’s okay,” because it’s not, but he also likes Dimitri, and he’s experienced worse. “I appreciate that.”

“Are you—” Dimitri appears to search for words for a moment. “Are you upset with me?”

 _11:54:33_. “No,” Claude says. “I’m not upset with you.”

Dimitri deflates, just slightly. Enough to soften the hard set of his shoulders, but not enough to unclench his jaw. “I should have expected—what happened. Sylvain is a good guy, he really is, but he’s—competitive, and he’s had a rough go of it.”

Claude raises a brow. “Haven’t we all.” He can’t say he’s particularly inclined to extend forgiveness on that front.

Dimitri sighs. “I know. I know. I—yeah. I know.” A pause, and now it’s time for class. Neither of them move. “It’s inexcusable what he did, and I should have shut him down before then. I should have—I don’t know. Not put you in that situation. That was unfair of me.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

Dimitri shakes his head. “I could have, actually. He and Felix have never been especially kind to Dedue, on that front. They’ve gotten better—I mean, he and Sylvain are friends now, kind of—but I should have—God, I don’t know. I know I keep saying that, that I don’t know, but I _don’t know_. I’ve never had to think about this stuff before. Not really.”

Claude nods. “I know,” he says, and he means it. “Sylvain’s a dick. Maybe he wasn’t the best person to start me off with.” He offers a small smile.

Dimitri doesn’t return it, seemingly intent on self-flagellating. “I know that now,” he says. “It won’t happen again. I promise.” His eyes are bright and intense where they meet Claude’s.

Claude meets and holds his gaze. “It will,” he says, because it’s the truth. “But it’ll suck less next time, because you’ll be there with me, right?”

Dimitri blinks. “Of course,” he says. His face is open and earnest. “Yes. Absolutely. I swear.”

“Thank you, Dimitri.” Claude smiles. “I—appreciate you apologizing. I appreciate you trying in there, too. I know you meant well. But—yeah. Maybe we’ll keep the friend groups to a smaller number? Maybe just...me and you and a couple others?” He thinks. “Maybe at Flayn’s?”

It’s an olive branch, and Dimitri takes it with enthusiasm. “Yes!” Then, reigning himself in, he says, “Yes. I’d like that.”

“Okay,” Claude agrees. His heart swells, just a little, just enough for him to feel it in the flush of his cheeks. “It’s a date.” It’s what he always says, because he had to save face _somehow_ , and Dimitri always ignores it with a smile, but now—

“A date,” Dimitri says, a little breathless.

Claude stares at him. “It’s—an expression. It’s just an expression.” And god, why did he say that? Why did he ever say anything? Why is he still talking as Dimitri looks at him like—

“A real date,” Dimitri says. “Let me take you on a date.”

“What?”

“I want to take you on a date.” The words are quiet, breathy, a little rushed and a little thick, like Dimitri’s throat is closing up. “Will you—let me?”

“Fuck,” Claude says, eloquent as always. “Fuck. I mean—shit. Yeah. I guess. Yes. Yeah, I’ll—” He clears his throat, forces himself to take a breath. “Yes, Dimitri. I’d love to go on a date with you.”

Dimitri’s smile is blinding, open and bright and oh-so sweet, and Claude feels himself melting in the light of it. “Good,” he breathes. He reaches to touch Claude’s shoulder, maybe his arm, but he stops halfway and lets his hand hang in the air. “I’m sorry, I don’t—”

Claude grabs his hand and shakes it. “It’s a deal,” he says, and giggles, because he can’t help it. “A date-deal.”

Dimitri’s hand is warm against his, fingers clenching around Claude’s as he laughs. “A date,” he says again.

Claude pulls his hand back. “We’ll—text later. About it. Figure out the details.” He’s walking to class, because if he doesn’t force himself to leave now, he never will. “I’ll talk to you later, Dimitri.”

“Thanks,” Dimitri calls from behind him. “I mean—”

Claude doesn’t catch the rest of it because he’s walking into the classroom, the door swinging shut behind him, but he has a feeling it’s totally worth the detention he’s about to get.

* * *

As it turns out, his teacher lets him off with a warning and a, “Don’t let it happen again,” to which Claude replies, “Never, sir.” He sits through class and jitters as he takes notes, feeling the weight of his phone’s absence in his back pocket. He wonders if Dimitri got to class alright, if he’s already texted Claude, if Claude’s phone is vibrating where it’s locked somewhere in Mr. Eisner’s desk—

“Claude,” Mr. Lin says, from the front of the class. “Eyes up front?”

“Yes, sir,” Claude says, and snaps his eyes back to the board. “Sorry.”

So the rest of his day passes much the same. He drifts in and out of his last three classes, staring idly at the clock or doodling in the margins of his notebook, time crawling and teasing until it finally seems to slow to a halt around him. It’s his last class and he swears he’s checked the clock three times, and each time it’s been less than a minute. He feels his skin itch, feels his leg bounce beneath his desk, feels his hair curled against the nape of his neck and knows, suddenly, that he needs a haircut. He resists the urge to tug at it, run his fingers through it, itch and scratch and pull at it. He knows he’s restless, tries to settle himself down, but honestly, if he looks at the clock _one more time_ and it still says 2:57—

“Alright, well, happy Tuesday,” says their teacher, settling the planes of her skirt. “I’ll let you all go a few minutes early.”

The class erupts instantly, a shuffle of bags and scraping chairs, and Claude finds himself jostled towards the door in the flood of it. He goes along with it, slipping into the hallway and down to Mr. Eisner’s room. Hilda’s standing just outside the door, one leg crossed in front of the other as she leans against the wall, waiting. She looks up from her phone when Claude gets close enough, and before she can say anything, Claude blurts,

“Dimitri asked me out.”

A moment of stunned silence passes between them, before Hilda leaps towards him with a scream.

“Claude! Claude, oh my God, I _knew it_ , I knew it, I told you—” And she’s got both arms around his shoulders, the entire weight of her body flung hard against his chest as she squeals. Eventually, her feet find the ground again, and she straightens herself in front of Claude. Breathing hard, she says, “I fucking told you.”

Claude feels himself blush, feels the color of it burn his cheeks and the tips of his ears and maybe almost to his neck. “Listen,” he says, and then stops, because really, what is he supposed to say? “You were right, he totally wants me”? Or, maybe worse, “Yeah, he asked me on a date, but only after his friend said some stupid racist shit”?

None of that sounds right, so instead he settles on, “We don’t have any plans yet, but—yeah. A date. Like—a real date.”

Hilda smiles in that sweet, sweet way she has, all bright teeth and pink lips, happy and excited and entirely focused on him. It’s incredible, the ability she has to make anyone feel like they’re the only person in the world, the only one who matters, and really, Claude should be immune to it by now, but it just feels _really fucking good_.

“I’m proud of you,” is what she says, and Claude melts a little. “I am so, so proud of you. And happy! Don’t forget happy, too. But”—and she grabs his arm, squeezing—“you deserve this. Dimitri, of all people!”

“Of all people,” Claude parrots, feeling a bit loopy. He meets her smile with one of his own.

It’s a really nice moment, it is, except they were loud enough for Mr. Eisner to poke his head out of his door, and while he doesn’t look unhappy, he’s not smiling, either.

“Mr. Riegan,” he says by way of greeting. “Miss Goneril.”

“Mr. Eisner,” they both say.

Mr. Eisner looks at Claude. “You’re here for your phone?”

“Yes.” Claude moves towards the door. “You said I could get it after school.”

Mr. Eisner nods. “I remember,” he says. “I’ll grab it for you.”

Claude waits expectantly for the Talk, the “We’ll talk after class” talk, but it never comes. Instead, Mr. Eisner emerges from the classroom, looks Claude in the eye, and says, “Just don’t do it again.”

“Yes sir,” Claude says, and nods, because that feels more formal. More convincing. Like, “Yes, sir, I’ve been properly disciplined,” instead of the, “Sorry, but I’m definitely going to do it again,” that he feels and knows is true.

Mr. Eisner doesn’t call him on it, though, and for that, Claude is very thankful.

As soon as they make it to the parking lot—to their cars, parked side-by-side as always, as they’ve done every morning for two years—Hilda gestures to Claude’s phone. Right now it hangs limply in his hand, screen still black, because Claude’s—well. He’ll be honest. He’s too afraid to check it. Or maybe _afraid_ isn’t the right word, but god, it’s not far off.

“I wanna see, I wanna see!” she says, bouncing excitedly. “I bet he’s already texted you. I bet he’ll wanna take you somewhere really romantic, and—oh! Oh my God, Claude, do you think he’ll _kiss_ you?” Hilda says the last part with a giggle, waggling her brows at “kiss.”

“That’s—none of your business, honestly,” Claude says stiffly, still too afraid to check his phone. He’s afraid of—what? Of opening his phone and seeing a _jk_ from Dimitri? Of a long-winded, mocking text that says, _I can’t believe you fell for it_? Of a video of Sylvain laughing from behind the corner, overcome with Claude’s _stupidity_ —

But of course, none of those things come true. Instead, Claude opens his phone, checks his texts, and finds five unread messages. Two are from Hilda, of course; even though she knew he didn’t have his phone, she couldn’t resist complaining about Mr. Hanneman. One reads, _i can see the hair dye on his temples_ , shortly followed by, _how do u think he looks at himself in the mirror?? do u think he can??? claude what if hes a VAMPIRE??????_

Claude snorts. “He’s not a vampire,” he says, to which Hilda replies, “Yeah, well, he’s still a dick.”

Claude considers. “Yeah. Fair.”

The next two texts are from his mother, which means they’re unimportant and he’ll look at them later. The real prize is, of course, the text from Dimitri, sent at _2:45pm_. The preview reads, _I’m excited. I’m glad you said yes. I’ve been thi_ …

Hilda screams. She actually, honestly screams. “Claude!” she cries, and punches his arm. “Claude! Open it!”

He opens it. It’s a whole paragraph. It reads:

_I’m excited. I’m glad you said yes. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and I could never figure out how to ask you, because I was too scared. The thought of someone like you saying yes to someone like me is hard to believe, but I’m glad we live in a world where it can happen. Where it did happen. Basically, thank you. I’m excited to get to know you._

For one long, merciful moment, Hilda is silent. Then: “What the fuck.”

Claude says, “Oh my God.”

Hilda says, “Oh my God?”

They look at each other. They blink. And then, Hilda begins to laugh.

“Who the fuck is this guy?” Hilda asks, wiping tears from her eyes. Her mascara is smudged at the corners. “He’s known you—a month? A little bit more? Who sends a text like that?”

Despite all of it—despite the formality of it, the earnestness of it, the _weirdness_ of it—Claude finds himself endeared, and a little defensive. “I think it’s sweet,” he says. “He’s very open about his feelings, and I respect that.”

Hilda levels a look at him. “Open with his feelings. Hmm.”

“He is! It shows enormous emotional maturity.”

“Yes,” Hilda deadpans. “Enormous.”

“He’s just trying to be nice.”

“I didn’t say he wasn’t nice!”

“No, but you _implied_ —”

“I _implied_ nothing,” Hilda says. “Shush. It’s just a bit silly, is all.”

Claude huffs. “Fine,” he allows. He feels for his keys in his pocket. “All that being said, I gotta go. We’re having people over for dinner.”

“Who?” Hilda’s looking for her keys, too, although she has a lot more pockets than Claude does, and she’s not in the habit of putting them in the same pocket.

“Some family, I think?” To be honest, he’s not sure, but when his mom doesn’t say, it’s usually family. “Mom said they’d be here around six and that I needed to be home early.”

“Selfish of her,” Hilda says, before pulling her keys triumphantly from her back pocket.

Claude shrugs. “Either way, I gotta help with dinner tonight. I’ll let you know how it goes, alright?”

“You’d better!”

“Promise,” Claude says, and slides into his car. “I’ll see you later, Hilda.”

“Bye!” And she waves to him as he drives away, a glowing, pink speck in his rearview mirror.

* * *

He gets home around three-thirty, but sits in his idling car for another fifteen. The silence of it, the cool, quiet emptiness of it, soothes him in a way that he struggles to find anywhere else. He lets himself relax into it, closing his eyes against the low rumble of the engine and the soft breeze of the A/C. It’s nice, and soft, and for the first time in several days, he allows himself to melt into the simplicity of it. Slowly, slowly, his mind comes to a halt, and he thinks about: the way his body sits heavy against the seat; the way his feet feel, curled and warm, inside of his boots; the soft grate of his sweater against his skin. He breathes, and breathes again, and shifts himself back inside the shell of his body, whole and warm and calm.

He opens his eyes.

The joints of his shoulders crack as he straightens, and as he swivels to open the door, he feels a deep pop from his hip. He feels loose, a little hazy, and he almost forgets to drag his backpack from the passenger seat as he steps from the car. It’s chilly, now, halfway through November, and the wind stings at his face as he walks to the door. He doesn’t see any other cars, and for that he’s thankful. His family isn’t great with time or space, and even though his mother said, “Somewhere around six,” there’s a good chance they’ll start showing up before then. It’s a very Riegan way of doing things.

He finds his mother in the kitchen, apron on, hair pulled into a bun, face a bit shiny from steam.

“Welcome home, sweetie,” she says, just because Claude has told her _so many times_ that he’s “Eighteen, Mom.” Not that it matters, really, to either of them, but it’s on _principle_ , and really, surely there are other, less patronizing names she could come up with.

Like his name, for example. Like Claude.

“I’m home,” he says, setting his bookbag gingerly on the linoleum floor and slouching into a chair. “What’s for dinner?”

“Soup,” his mom says, like that’s an answer.

“What kind of soup?”

A smile, mischievous. “You’ll see,” she says.

Claude rolls his eyes.

“Did you get my texts?”

Oh, right. “Oh, right,” he says. He pulls his phone from his pocket. “Mr. Eisner took my phone today. Sorry, I should’ve responded before.”

She waves him off. “Just thought you’d be excited, is all.”

“Excited?” He opens his messages, curious now. Most of what his mother sends him are links to five-year-old memes and various cat videos. It’s cute, usually, and it’s always a nice reminder that she’s thinking of him, but also maybe if she’d tried this hard when he was younger—maybe had been around a bit more when they first moved to Fodlan—well…

But he checks his messages.

The first one is simple: _Please b home by 4._ Done. Check. He’s done that, so—

_Aunt Judith is coming!!!!!! Surprise!!!!!!!!_

Eight exclamation points, which, yeah, is about how Claude feels right now.

“Aunt Judith?” he asks, excitement bleeding into his voice. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? When did she decide to come? Why didn’t she text _me_?”

His mother laughs. “She wanted it to be a surprise, sweetie.” _Sweetie_. He lets it slide. “And it was all very last-minute, anyway, we thought it would be nice.”

“Is she bringing…?” He hardly dares ask, because that feels like it would be closely bordering on too-good-to-be-true territory, but he’s already a bit beside himself, and maybe—

“Nader’s coming, too.”

Claude feels a smile stretch across his face, even as he will it not to. _Aunt Judith and Nader are coming_. It doesn’t matter, then, who else is visiting. It doesn’t matter, because the only two people who _do_ matter—the only two people in his family that Claude has ever, really, truly cared about—will be here in less than two hours.

“How long are they staying?” he asks. There’s so much he wants to show them, to talk to them about. A quiet, traitorous thought also suggests that he introduce them to Dimitri; after all, he is translating _The Eagle and the Lion_ , and who better to talk to than the leading expert in Almyra? It’d be perfect, except for the fact that he’s known Dimitri for a month, and doesn’t exactly love the idea of introducing him to his family.

 _Hi, guys_ , he hears himself say. _This is my not-boyfriend, Dimitri. We touched once and I’ve been thinking about it for weeks. Sometimes, he looks at me and my brain melts from my ears. The verdict’s still out on how he feels about me, but he asked me on a date, and we all know how well it goes when a sport-playing white guy asks you out!_ He hears the room laugh. _I’m sure everything will go great, which is why I want you all to meet him. Everyone, please give a warm welcome to Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, richest man in town, and the man who may or may not be my boyfriend_. He imagines Dimitri waving, dressed in a slim suit and tie because of course he would be, and there’s a sweet, soft blush across his freckled cheeks. His hand is warm where it grabs Claude’s beneath the table, and Claude imagines he’d squeeze first, just to soothe, and Dimitri would squeeze back with a shy smile on his face and a gentle brush of his thumb against Claude’s pulsepoint. He doesn’t know why he’s imagining a formal dinner, but maybe it’d be at Dimitri’s house, like a meeting of their families. He’d introduce them, start the mingling, and he and Dimitri would watch over the evening like the devoted, happy couple they were.

Like it would be so easy.

Claude shakes his head to rid himself of the thought. It’s one thing for Dimitri to ask him on a date, but it’s another thing entirely to be imagining a future with him. To think about their families, a shared home, a shared life. It aches, bittersweet and filled with longing, and it’s starting to hurt in a way he doesn’t understand. The more he thinks about Dimitri, the more he feels his heart break, almost like a living thing where it sits inside his chest. It’s sharp and it’s bright and it thrills him as much as it scares him, and he’s been ignoring the thought that this isn’t normal, not really, but it sneaks into his dreams at night, finds him in his sleep, and it’s so hard to ignore something that finds you just as you wake up, like a snake behind his eyelids.

There’s something so _easy_ about Dimitri, and it makes him just as dangerous.

“They’ll be here for a week,” Claude’s mother says, because he asked her a question. “They’re staying in the guest bedroom.”

That, at least, is good news. “Good,” Claude says. Then, “Good,” to reassure himself. “I’m glad.” The words sound distant to his own ears, his excitement muddled with a thousand other feelings he can’t begin to untangle or name.

Claude’s mom glances over at him, tucking a wild piece of hair behind her ear. “Go on and get changed, then,” she says, and waves him up the stairs. “They’ll be here soon enough, and you still need to shower.”

“I showered this morning!”

“And then you went to school.” She cocks a brow, one hand on her hip and the other brandishing a dripping spoon. “Go on. You’re dirty.”

“Rude.”

He does as she says, though, and by the time he finally drags himself from the shower, he hears the doorbell ring.

“Honey, I’m home!” calls a loud voice, and Claude knows immediately who it is.

Aunt Judith has arrived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all, as always, for reading! this story has absolutely taken on a life of its own, and i’m so excited (and nervous! gosh!) to share it with you all. as it stands now, we’re looking at about two, maybe three more chapters, with a (shorter...) epilogue. we’ll see how that plan looks after the next chapter, though.
> 
> comments are so, so appreciated! i’ve loved reading all of your thoughts and reactions so far. thank you so much for sticking with this throughout dimiclaude week, as well <3
> 
> as always, you can find me on twitter @ nishtabel!

**Author's Note:**

> this story is currently a work in progress. i will do my best to finish it by the end of dimiclaude week, but realistically, it will take me a bit longer. there are a lot of moving parts and i want to do it justice. :’)
> 
> comments are always, always appreciated! you can find me over on twitter @ nishtabel.


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